Martha Graham Dances Clytemnestra

A mouth clamped shut because the body folds
over.
A body bowed. A body that never grew
hair and skin half as sticky.
Would a woman laid waste make a maid.
Is she an act that grants her own reward.

Still life with an asp-mouth and carbon teeth, self portrait in A storm, playing a dirge,
a weather system,
a ritual cleansing, a sacrificial
So what:

A mouth clamped shut because the body folds
over.
The body bowed.
This does not live where you live, or vibrate at the strike of your feet.

A body bowed.

No grief, not grief, not black grief nor gray dread, not dead jealousy or
jealousy in the act of murder
One vocation will pay me and for the other
I will pay and pay and
Pay.

I remember a disquisition on forgiveness as a way to keep returning to the
hurt
the grief was the love
My daughter my daughter my strong-born my only my only

Swell of a thousand silent trespassers.
Mother rolls out the purple cloak.
Where is your wind now.

— Farren Stanley