Anne Carson Poems

After your death.
It was windy every day.
Every day.
Opposed us like a wall.
...

Isaiah awoke angry.
Lapping at Isaiah's ears black birdsong no it was anger.
God had filled Isaiah's ears with stingers.
...

Hanging on the daylight black.
As an overcoat with no man in it one cold bright.
Noon the Demander was waiting for me.
...

She ran in.
Wet corn.
Yellow braid.
Down her back.
...

Their faces I thought were knives.
The way they pointed them at me.
And waited.
...

'Spring is always like what it used to be.'
Said an old Chinese man.
Rain hissed down the windows.
...

A bird flashed by as if mistaken then it
starts. We do not think speed of life.
We do not think why hate Jezebel? We
...

This
slow
day
moves
...

Tell me.
Have you ever seen woods so.
Deep so.
Every tree a word does your heart stop?
Once I saw a cloud over Bolivia so deep.
...

Chorus:
Choral interlude followed by Act IV.
How many pins can dance on the head of a god?
How many kings can you pin to the dance in my head?
How many dances left stains on the woman he was?
How many stains kept him quiet, O Agave!

[enter Agave exultant and covered in blood, carrying the head of Pentheus impaled on a lacuna]

Agave:
O!

Chorus:
Speak, Agave.

Agave:
I've come with the pins.

Chorus:
We welcome the pins.

Agave:
I stained them as prizes.

Chorus:
We prize them as kings.

Agave:
How many kings—

Chorus:
did you rip the cheeks off?

Agave:
How many cheeks—

Chorus:
did you pin to the delicate mouth of the mother?

Agave:
How many mouths did she need—

Chorus:
to finish the meat?

Agave:
Not so many.

Chorus:
A happy number?

Agave:
A clever number.

Chorus:
A realistic number?

Agave:
A frolic of a number.

[Agave raises lacuna high in one hand then lowers it gradually as her mood changes]

But then again,
actually, not much of a number.

Chorus:
If you think about it?

Agave:
A dismal little number.

Chorus:
If you study it closely?

Agave:
Just a sob of a number.

Chorus:
O Agave!

Agave:
What?

Chorus:
Your sob has a name.

Agave:
How many names can I pry from the head of a pun?

Chorus:
Just one.

Agave:
O my son!

[Agave tosses lacuna to audience with Pentheus' head attached]
...