The Big Exceptions
The women move in caged-in places both
In life and plays. In poetry they are
Curtailed to Sappho and Corinna. Troth
Constricts Penelope. It hems. No spar
To take her seas away, she tends a loom,
Is trapped at night unpicking her trapped work,
And knows a palace room is just a room.
When a husband is a way she cannot shirk,
Because of men. Medea knows this worst
Of all, this girdle of confinement. She
Is left behind with children. . . then the burst
With hatred’s poison. Only then she’s free.
..The goddesses and sorceresses, they
Unjustly have their paltry fun with prey.