Helen in Underworld ~ Catherynne M. Valente
It was in Egypt. I found them in Egypt:
little oily seeds.
iridescent, almost,
like hummingbird pupils.
There was sand in your eyebrows
when you gave them to me,
sand in the creases of apothecary-palms.
Your eyes were full of mercury and gypsum,
overflowing with bryony and hellebore.
I thought the venom-glut meant
you were to be trusted.
You promised to make of me
a cloud-Helen,
a creature of vapor and moonlight.
You promised that roses would detonate in my brain,
that my heart would crack
and its ventricles would overflow
with olives and goatsblood.
You promised that oblivion
would strangle me with ringed hands.
You promised me I would remember nothing.
I took it back to my husband,
mashed the seeds with a pestle of bone.
The sludge was so black,
like the innards of butterflies.
It was easy to fold it into honeyed dough,
easy to smile and smile
while I crawled about his errands
on my knees, on my hands,
still boat-shackled
as though it all happened yesterday
and we two still sea-tossed-
no more than I deserved, he sneered.
Easy to lie on my pillows
while he gobbled up the sweets,
crumbs catching in the sheep-wool of his barrel-chest,
licking the sugar-seeds off of his beard
with a slavering tongue.
The taste of them, smeared into Stygian icing,
was of mouse-spleens
and burnt apples soaked in wine.
I pressed it to the roof of my mouth with my tongue.
I waited for the darkness,
I waited for the wind-torn towers
to melt in me and dribble
out of my mouth like scorched fruit.
He crawled to me on his knees,
pawing my thighs, growling that I owed him,
I owed him,
I owed him,
and if I had whored my swan-born body
to the leopard-slaying prince,
there was nothing I could refuse.
My jaw shattered in his fist,
my beak-golden hair tore from my scalp.
He dragged my ship-launching face
down into the depths of his beard,
and I was not a cloud,
I was not vapor,
I was meat and bile and his lips
were stealing my breath
and the city flamed behind me;
I could feel the heat of it still.
He broke the kitchen table when he collapsed,
insensate, honey drooling from his mouth.
Blood bloomed in me,
a secret door, flesh-fluttering,
and I fell into it,
I fell so far,
eager for your promised ease,
eager to forget the smell of Creusa burning,
her hair sizzling into baldness,
her fingernails boiling-
I wanted to forget that spattering perfume,
forget the boy-prince and his zealous kisses,
forget her endless keening,
like a heifer slaughtered for my hecatomb.
You promised me. Sand-browed apothecary,
with your cabinet of poisons.
You promised the shades
would stop crowding me,
would stop worming their mouths into me
to warm themselves in my blood-
but they were there,
waiting at the bottom
of the well of my womb,
and I fell into their arms,
whimpering, begging nonsense vowels.
They opened my belly as though unfolding a blanket
over an amputee on that lonely, mussel-strewn beach-
and pulled out their dresses left on the altars-
blue and violet and green,
spangled and ivory-buttoned,
veils and furs and ribbons.
They pulled from me the hollow horse,
the sleek black ships;
they pulled from me the eggs of my birth,
the ash-spear cock of Ajax,
and fire,
endless buckets of fire,
passed from ghost to ghost like well-water.
They dragged Ilium from my body entire,
towers and gates and plumed helmets,
and I whispered that I was a bird, a cloud,
I had nothing but wings and air to my name,
and they could not accuse me
as though I were a woman.
But they would not listen,
they would not see the feathers I showed them,
they would not see my ruined cradle-egg.
They dug into me over and over
and pulled out their own faces,
coins blazing in their eyes.
I clutched at my belly, my swan-belly,
my vapor-belly:
it threw back the black paste onto my husband’s feet.
You lied, You lied,
with sand in your mouth, you lied to me.
The cloud-Troy
still floats in me like a cancer,
sending its flames into the slough of asphodels
that line the curve of my skull.
It is still there, still there,
so pale, and so bright,
and I will take the mercury next,
if you will sell it to me,
and the gypsum, and the bryony,
and the hellebore,
I have enough, more than enough
to pay for these.
Put your quicksilver under my tongue.
I do not mind the taste.
Make me not-Helen. Tell me
I have been here, in Egypt all along,
and I did not hear Cassandra’s wrist break
on the altar steps.
little oily seeds.
iridescent, almost,
like hummingbird pupils.
There was sand in your eyebrows
when you gave them to me,
sand in the creases of apothecary-palms.
Your eyes were full of mercury and gypsum,
overflowing with bryony and hellebore.
I thought the venom-glut meant
you were to be trusted.
You promised to make of me
a cloud-Helen,
a creature of vapor and moonlight.
You promised that roses would detonate in my brain,
that my heart would crack
and its ventricles would overflow
with olives and goatsblood.
You promised that oblivion
would strangle me with ringed hands.
You promised me I would remember nothing.
I took it back to my husband,
mashed the seeds with a pestle of bone.
The sludge was so black,
like the innards of butterflies.
It was easy to fold it into honeyed dough,
easy to smile and smile
while I crawled about his errands
on my knees, on my hands,
still boat-shackled
as though it all happened yesterday
and we two still sea-tossed-
no more than I deserved, he sneered.
Easy to lie on my pillows
while he gobbled up the sweets,
crumbs catching in the sheep-wool of his barrel-chest,
licking the sugar-seeds off of his beard
with a slavering tongue.
The taste of them, smeared into Stygian icing,
was of mouse-spleens
and burnt apples soaked in wine.
I pressed it to the roof of my mouth with my tongue.
I waited for the darkness,
I waited for the wind-torn towers
to melt in me and dribble
out of my mouth like scorched fruit.
He crawled to me on his knees,
pawing my thighs, growling that I owed him,
I owed him,
I owed him,
and if I had whored my swan-born body
to the leopard-slaying prince,
there was nothing I could refuse.
My jaw shattered in his fist,
my beak-golden hair tore from my scalp.
He dragged my ship-launching face
down into the depths of his beard,
and I was not a cloud,
I was not vapor,
I was meat and bile and his lips
were stealing my breath
and the city flamed behind me;
I could feel the heat of it still.
He broke the kitchen table when he collapsed,
insensate, honey drooling from his mouth.
Blood bloomed in me,
a secret door, flesh-fluttering,
and I fell into it,
I fell so far,
eager for your promised ease,
eager to forget the smell of Creusa burning,
her hair sizzling into baldness,
her fingernails boiling-
I wanted to forget that spattering perfume,
forget the boy-prince and his zealous kisses,
forget her endless keening,
like a heifer slaughtered for my hecatomb.
You promised me. Sand-browed apothecary,
with your cabinet of poisons.
You promised the shades
would stop crowding me,
would stop worming their mouths into me
to warm themselves in my blood-
but they were there,
waiting at the bottom
of the well of my womb,
and I fell into their arms,
whimpering, begging nonsense vowels.
They opened my belly as though unfolding a blanket
over an amputee on that lonely, mussel-strewn beach-
and pulled out their dresses left on the altars-
blue and violet and green,
spangled and ivory-buttoned,
veils and furs and ribbons.
They pulled from me the hollow horse,
the sleek black ships;
they pulled from me the eggs of my birth,
the ash-spear cock of Ajax,
and fire,
endless buckets of fire,
passed from ghost to ghost like well-water.
They dragged Ilium from my body entire,
towers and gates and plumed helmets,
and I whispered that I was a bird, a cloud,
I had nothing but wings and air to my name,
and they could not accuse me
as though I were a woman.
But they would not listen,
they would not see the feathers I showed them,
they would not see my ruined cradle-egg.
They dug into me over and over
and pulled out their own faces,
coins blazing in their eyes.
I clutched at my belly, my swan-belly,
my vapor-belly:
it threw back the black paste onto my husband’s feet.
You lied, You lied,
with sand in your mouth, you lied to me.
The cloud-Troy
still floats in me like a cancer,
sending its flames into the slough of asphodels
that line the curve of my skull.
It is still there, still there,
so pale, and so bright,
and I will take the mercury next,
if you will sell it to me,
and the gypsum, and the bryony,
and the hellebore,
I have enough, more than enough
to pay for these.
Put your quicksilver under my tongue.
I do not mind the taste.
Make me not-Helen. Tell me
I have been here, in Egypt all along,
and I did not hear Cassandra’s wrist break
on the altar steps.