Eurydice

by Chella Courington

Women have cried over my confinement

in hell by a husband who loved me so

he could not turn away

could not abide the caveat.

These long dark days

underground

breathless

I have not lived yearning for him.

I’m fine.

Did you really believe he wanted me

on earth with him?

Orpheus?

The beloved singer?

What would he sing if I were there?

For his song he needed me

buried beneath the crushing ground

star-crossed love that could never vanish

because it never was.

He didn’t desire a woman

bloody with menstrual rituals

whose body once luminous would be taken by time.

Orpheus could not accept such a betrayal.

He wanted me as nymph, not crone.

Even more than age

he feared my voice.

Afraid it would rise above his.

What did he know of suffering and forgiveness?

I was the one severed from the sun

shut in subterranean darkness

barely enough oxygen.

He could have joined me the day I descended.

A knife to his throat, a serpent to his breast.

But he did none of these.

Came to me later by other hands.

I have no use for him.

* * * * *

Chella Courington is a writer and teacher whose poetry and stories appear or are forthcoming in numerous anthologies and journals including SmokeLong Quarterly, The Collagist, and The Los Angeles Review. Her novella, Adele and Tom: The Portrait of a Marriage, is available at Breaking Rules Publishing. (chellacourington.net)