#anne carson

THE ORESTIA

THE ORESTIA

but am covertly watching my mother.

A thousand questions hit my eyes from the inside.

My mother is studying her lettuce.

I turn to p. 217.

“In my flight through the kitchen I knocked over Hareton

who was hanging a litter of puppies

from a chairback in the doorway. . . .”

It is as if we have all been lowered into an atmosphere of glass.

Now and then a remark trails through the glass.

Taxes on the back lot. Not a good melon,

too early for melons.

Hairdresser in town found God, closes shop every Tuesday.

Mice in the teatowel drawer again.

Little pellets. Chew off

the corners of the napkins, if they knew

what paper napkins cost nowadays.

Rain tonight.

Rain tomorrow.

That volcano in the Philippines at it again. What’s her name

Anderson died no not Shirley

the opera singer. Negress.

Cancer.

Not eating your garnish, you don’t like pimento?

Out the window I can see dead leaves ticking over the flatland

and dregs of snow scarred by pine filth.

At the middle of the moor

where the ground goes down into a depression,

the ice has begun to unclench.

Black open water comes

curdling up like anger. My mother speaks suddenly.

That psychotherapy’s not doing you much good is it?

From Grief Lessons, Four Plays by Euripides, translated by Anne Carson