Iphigenia, by M. Eileen

The Sacrifice of Iphigenia, National Archaelogical Museum of Naples (Pompeii) 1st Century CE.

Iphigenia

A tease, a breeze, plasters my shroud to my face as they ladle Iphigenia
A sacrifice to be, but a breathing woman still, and yet,
Hauled with the same grace as a slaughtered bull,    
Her eyes wide circular silent blue white grey like the motionless sea, open
As the bull’s guts would be, entrails replaced here by soundless tears.
 
Iphigenia opens her mouth to protest but never says the words
Kneads those lips together, knows she is of strength-born
Absorbs the scenery she is carried past, the lunacy, the chaos, dizzying
Slices of colour, of sea and seaside, abandoned ships, skeletal trees,
And maybe me, hiding in the colour of the lightest pink roses Persephone gathered.
 
A woman who breathed air, who bled blood,
Oh, look how it careens down each crag of the ledge into the water now.
Iphigenia, emptied now.
Strength-born, and pure of heart, fine to suffer for the
betterment of others, she will never see, and never learn it was never true.
 
And as the ships set their way to Troy,
Peter Blegvad’s voice pops from the frothy lather against the sliding:
And that's my daughter in the water
I lost every time I fought her…
Every time she blinks, she'd strike somebody blind.
​​
M. Eileen

M. Eileen writes, teaches, edits, and breathes beside the water. Her poetry and prose have been published in Hanging Loose, MonkeyBicycle, and Rogue Agent, among others. She can be found @m_e_g_writes.