Kate Angus' Poem

On Circe’s Island

I had been given a plant to save me; nacreous white flower ascending from the deep sea-dark of the root. But I did not want--entirely--to be saved. Ithaca’s rocks rise far away. Skin craves pelt sometimes--a forest of hair that the soul can hide in--and I was tired. I wanted to be mountain lion, pig, wolf. I wanted to be animal nature. At Troy, I had been horse--both in its mind and its silence. I was the engenderer of the idea of horse, I impregnated horse with warriors, and, in the dark night, opened the door so that horse birthed men and the death of men. I have been the spume on the waves, I have hidden myself behind my own words so entirely that words become their own body and I am ghost. Do not misunderstand me: I wanted return, but for a moment just as badly I wanted the borders of my flesh to be the only new country I would travel through--I wanted blood and bone alone as home.


-Kate A