After Seeing Women of Troy
by Cally Conan-Davies
The play is done. The actors softly smile,
silencing the rifle’s harsh report.
Then, looking down, we move towards the aisle.
Over coffee, groups of women talk
of marriage, children, work. And all the while —
What's Hecuba to me? Andromache,
keening? Cassandra's bloody gusset, her spasms?
A grandson’s broken body? Helen pleading?
Bird-chorus, clutching crumbs to stave off dying,
packed in boxes by faceless men, all grey,
with cell-phones, masking-tape, a staple-gun –
a shutter-click as trolleys roll away.
Women — slit, shot, reduced to freight. It's done.
For what, Euripides, do you persist?
Art cannot help us. Still, this world appalls.
— another queue forms at the theatre doors
to watch black blood seep through their Trojan walls.