MEDEA
You came to Colchis.
I pulled loose acanthus branches.
Though thorns cut my hands,
I wound them ‘round columns for you.
I honored your victory with laurel wreaths.
I wound them in your dark gloss’d curls.
I slept to murmured words of love,
My face buried in your bronzed throat.
I burned for you.
I gave you unguents and herbs.
Hecate laughed at my blind adulation.
They say: The gods laugh when they answer your prayers.
I killed my brother for you.
I cut him in a thousand pieces.
They never found them all to bury.
You left me for Glauce, princess.
Her wedding gifts: a gold coronet and dress of crimson cloth.
I worked hatred into the weft and poison into the weave.
I, whom you called barbarian,
I sent her our sons, bearing these gifts of my love for you.
She burned for you, her soft flesh melting like wax.
Now the wedding dress is her shroud.
I wander the ruin’d garden.
This twilight is never-ending.
The vines pull my dress and hair.
I walk up the crumbling steps.
My skirts weigh me down.
The children pull at them.
I keep looking, looking for you.
I raise my right hand to the gods.
I implore for vengeance.
They turn their faces away.
I hear Hecate laughing.
Leaves redden in the dying light.
My hands are too empty.
I killed our sons for you.
I wound my hand in their dark gloss’d curls.
I bared their bronzed throats, so like their father’s.
I cut them in a thousand pieces.
I scattered them to the sea.
I still hear their voices, feel their breath.
It pulls at me like a thousand vines, binding me to twilight.
300 ineligible words
