appealing

The Maynard
Spring 2020

Sarah Lyons-Lin
0:00
 
 

Like the best myths

this one has two tellings.

For Sophocles: A looped rope closes in, scavenging. Pressure snakes under the jaw. Shining moon of Jupiter, uterine beast—her body mutilated by its own hands. Scratches flowering the neck. Eyes still open heaven-wide, her head snap-stem crooked. Hung, her shape is a woman, then a mother, then a witch.

For Euripides: The woman turns to magic, transforms her guilt into an array of bright fabric. Endures. Renames herself blame. Endures that defiling love, that husband-child, and follows him still—into isolation, into the wild, into bondage and a hollowed version of herself.

Both are the story of men.