On watching a family member speak cruelly to my child
…she did not say yesand so the god removed
the possibility of saying no:
helpless now Cassandra heaved up war,
her own abduction, Troy
broken to obscene pieces like those men
women, children, all the kind and kine
who called it home. Even, the death
of abhorred Agamemnon –
ripped from her throat. Who wants
to say such things. What good
ever, from it.
Catherine Rockwood reads: “On watching a family member speak cruelly to my child”
Catherine Rockwood’s poems have appeared or are forthcoming from Bad Lilies, Psaltery & Lyre, Scoundrel Time, Coffin Bell, Moist Poetry Journal, and many other places. Her/their chapbook, Endeavors to Obtain Perpetual Motion, is available from the Ethel Zine Press. Twitter: @martin65.
Banner Art: “Circus of War, after Hogarth,” a visual poem by Robert Frede Kenter (c) 2023. Twitter: @frede_kenter, IG: (2 accounts) (1) r.f.k.vispocityshuffle, (2) icefloe22.
IceFloe Press 