Read More: A brief Q&A with Margaret Diehl
Eurydice
I blamed him for his mistrust
that great man killing her again
then wondered if she poured
molten silence into her limbs
dreaming the dead the dead the dead
hoping that what happened
would happen—the seize of doubt
the turn to look so she could melt
back to the nameless ones
who breathed the dark, from whose breath
all earth is remade.
Woody and ferny plants, berries
acorns, animals with rough hides
scales or feathers, lit interiors
of houses glimmering—fire, tapestries,
beaten copper, eyes—
through centuries. Pebbles, clay, cliffs
alphabets, distinctions, gradations,
thoughts parsed fine as cornsilk
and underneath, inside,
cocooning, the slow breaths
of the first to die. O pioneers—
Eurydice II
Often I think of her feet
whether they were bare
or wrapped in linen.
If they were cold.
How much she knew about climbing.
I see her on olive trees, on cliffs
in the girl years of freedom
—as if.
Her torso blurred, caught in motion
wearing a gown the color of wine
in the dark so dark the cloth
could be green or toothy
or woven of snakes—
you don’t know.
A kept woman can dream
of other skin, scented like juniper
or in the dark become the dark
that bursts from the center of the earth
where the goddess
struck her ax. Creation
is a fury that lasts. […]
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Eurydice III
I also wanted to hide
from a demanding love
in favor of the dead no longer scented
with sweat and smoke.
I imagined them as like North wind
if you live in a place with only South wind—
scorpions, rotten fruit
tourist hotels, hangovers.
In youth you have ideas
about age. Everything in its place
a formal garden with stone paths
the stones white and round
and all the same size – flowers by season
though mostly the season
is a kind of motionless summer
without heat or sex. […]
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Margaret Diehl has published two chapbooks of poems Exit Seraphim, by Ravenna Press (2023) it all stayed open (Red Glass Books, 2011), two novels and a memoir (Men, 1989, Me and You, 1990 and The Boy on the Green Bicycle, 1999, all from Soho Press) as well as poems, short stories, and essays in literary journals, including Kestrel, The Chattahoochie Review, Kenyon Review, The American Journal of Poetry, AMP, Cloudbank, The Adirondack Review, and Gargoyle. She lives in New York City.
Read More: A brief Q&A with Margaret Diehl