cast list; I learn this from my lover; A WOMAN sleeps fitfully on the temple floor ripe with fruit & snow; from Circe, or Can No One Accurately Portray My Majesty? - series of three

 

By Kathryne David Gargano

cast list

A WOMAN:             goddess of /

A WOMAN:             mothers the world when she chooses

A WOMAN:             leader of ghosts

A WOMAN :             counts ships to fall asleep

A WOMAN:             a runner

A WOMAN:             a beast (or three)

A WOMAN:             chews the end of an arrow / files her teeth on the point

A WOMAN:             keeps the moon under her pillow

A WOMAN:             as triptych

A WOMAN:             reaches her hand toward A WOMAN

A WOMAN:             tugging the world into a semblance of grace

A WOMAN:             breaking the world apart

A WOMAN:             cradles the babe to her breast & does not crush his skull

A WOMAN:             in search of

A WOMAN:             about to

A WOMAN:             dies in her sleep & when she wakes a pantheon surrounds her

A WOMAN:             fuels her ire in myths / scratches her name from the texts

A WOMAN:             curious & cautioned

A WOMAN:             takes the hand of A WOMAN

A WOMAN:             as chorus


I learn this from my lover

how the wind sits               

upon the geography

of a body & how it arcs      

& splinters / what the water

makes of a cupped palm  

or the winter of my skin                

the tender of my mouth    

seeking hers / the torchlight rounds the edges

& I remember                    

all our starting

my jaw her fingertips                    

the ruins we decipher / cold hollows

in my spine                         

& the aftertaste of something lost

a body without                               

courtesy to itself / or kindness / I slip myself

inside her view / a way of 

keeping or being kept in light                                

I learn this from my lover  

how to worship the body as a grieving

when the telegraphy          

breaks down


A WOMAN sleeps fitfully on the temple floor ripe with fruit & snow

in my sleep I hear the boiling
of her throat red & waxy potency
knocked from the remnants 

of our tongues / children scythed
from our bodies & we know each other
across myth across the hiss 

of earth & I long to dig out the cry
with my finger / her larynx in my palm
a terrified bear miniature hungry & awake 


from Circe, or Can No One Accurately Portray My Majesty?
        
after Barker Wright’s “Circe”  (1889) 

in my palace I stain the walls bright white

I do not play I cannot sing you a song / to your death
or your love / I am not one for show business 

this world is not for you / but you inhabit it so well
taking taking taking 

here are my knees—are they everything
you imagined? 

this fox was once a man / now his tail between his legs / observe
the metaphor of the conquered man / turned animal 

is this the punishment
for those who are not docile? 

we sweep our
restlessness under / away 

I dream my wings spread open / carry me
the days I long for winter


 from Circe, or Can No One Accurately Portray My Majesty?
after John William Waterhouse’s “Circe Offering the Cup to Odysseus” (1891) 

my ankles are two window panes
my dress a curtain parted 

each night my lioness licks
the mirror clean of your reflection:

she is the archetype of the predatory / female  

when you rewrite my story
make it a broadway musical / lower me
down from the rafters in spotlight 

we parlay from opposite sides
of the stage
you use words like
devour / quarrel / manhood / medley

I use words like
ask / before / you / drink / my / wine


from Circe, or Can No One Accurately Portray My Majesty?
         after John William Waterhouse’s “Circe Invidiosa” (1892)

what they don’t tell you is this: my
sister isn’t a monster. I did not make
her one. she woke up to a man
standing over her bed chewing on his
thumb & in the dark he demanded
her hand. she refused. he asked me
for a potion to change her mind her
affections her body into one that
desires his body & so I went to the
sea where she bathes & poured my
potion into the water. t his was my
spell: let him see only what you think
of him on your skin. let him see only
the ugliness of his own reflection. let
him chew his thumb in the dark
alone. leave her. alone.


Kathryne David Gargano (she/hers) hails from the Pacific Northwest, but isn't very good at climbing trees. She received her MFA from the University of Nevada - Las Vegas, and is currently pursuing a PhD in Creative Writing from the University of Wisconsin - Milwaukee. Her work has been published in Rust Moth, Pithead Chapel, Phoebe, Colorado Review, and others. She won an AWP Intro Award in Poetry in 2020, and F(r)iction’s Summer Poetry Contest in 2019.