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.