ROTHKO'S EYES

I cannot entertain this truth

as being someone else’s.

I envision Cassandra

reaching out in her last moment,

retching 
from the stench of truth

And it is me.

I think of Iphigenia 
on that alter stone,

eyes gazing up at father’s

And it is me.

I watch with inward eye

as Clytemnestra plots Agamemnon’s death:

bath drawn,

knife stealthily concealed

And it is me.

“ROTHKO!” 

I shout, gazing on the Eagle.

And agonize,

conceiving corpses

cold before my coil was formed,

And It Is ME.

*The artist Mark Rothko’s

“Omen of The Eagle” was his response

to “The Orestia.” I offer this feminist

response to both works.