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 sits at loom,
Is trapped at night unpicking her trapped work,
And knows a palace room is just a room.
When husband is away she cannot shirk,
Not even then. 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.