CLYTEMNESTRA

I remember the castle,
its stone’s obsidian, the sea slapping the moat,
the wall against my shoulder a frigid obscenity,
wind screaming

Sometimes I fret that I could be wrong—
the crowds’ scowls are murderous,
but there is a razor within my bosom, its ferocity
so sharp it can’t but slice true meat

The day after I did it—
regretless, delivered you by blade-stroke
‘til your stunk breath stopped blurting,
my heart was a bird soaring above the jeers
I was not a woman sloshing through ocean
my gown ushering me under
I was a commander standing at the head of the drawbridge

Naught but a herd blind to your butchery,
all spit my name
proclaiming me regicide
to be hanged or bull-dragged to oblivion
but I am a daughter-phile, a furie, glorying

I once had a dream of a woman with
a basket of snakes and apples
striding up a treachery
she was nearing the summit

Sometimes I wonder if a daughter is not
a mother’s jeweled egg

Agamemnon, vile husband, you always used to say
as if you walked hand in hand with Zeus
“A man’s ship is his soul,” but my womb throbbing knows
to war flank to flank with naked, flame-kissed men is your elixir

Too, my ears know: bellowing from Hades
you will quick dispatch our tender-blooming
blood-doomed son to cut me down

Tomorrow I will climb down to Iphigenia’s pyre
and there, at the sea,
I will wet my bare toes

But now it’s dusk
the black sky rent by cherry streams
I will eat the strand of hair I snatched from her pillow