Helen:
We kiss not in dreams or future, but in present
snatched from the ramparts as the dusk
hides the sun’s unscalable filter. It is a secret
we tell to the woven air, to the exploding
asterisk of battle firefight below, to the departing
back of my beguiling husband. Women are
serenaded by sheets of metal dividing the words
that bind us: arguments, falsehoods, entreaties,
executive orders – so we build words for a shrine
with no temple, struck down by an angry god.
The kiss is a little bit of tongue, a little bit of
teeth, hands on the shoulders, first, drifting
down, a combination, a tryst, a memory, a memorial.
I have heard the tales. My choice is resist.
Cassandra:
I have heard the tales, my choice is resist
from the turned heads, the mismatched
frowns, the exposed lamplight. The truth burns
even parental devotion. I cannot stand without
speaking. I cannot bind without hands.
I cannot love without heart. The god’s rebellion
kept safe behind the whisper of clouds whilst
we mortals pit the law of our bodies against
each other in enmity, in struggle and in passion.
We lose a brother, a champion, a baby’s lock of hair
wrapped tight between fingers – all swept
aside by the chariot’s run toward the sun,
through the screaming ramparts, blood,
blood, the marching I have never lost step.
Helen:
Blood the marching I have never lost step
counting soldiers to amass, keeps to shake,
mountains to pound; the sea breathes with
frenzied flagrance. Spiritless council meetings
call me: woman. This, their greatest insult.
Yet the Greek husband loves across oceans,
furious, venal and unrelenting, his laughter his
army’s response. Mortal’s lives are set to ruin when
the sea breaks inside, when the gods take notice.
Cauldron Anthology
31