in the museum gallery. a woman sits down on the bench gently, says something to another. low
enough i can’t hear but it gets a half smile, a soft bloom of chuckle. they have known each other
for years i think, as i voyeur the space between their bodies: push and pull, an easy togetherness.
here, i am with them in a way that matters but also doesn’t. the three of us loosely gathered,
our bodies dwarfed by the expanse of oil. i am trying to become more content with loneliness,
the blank spaces around myself. the unshuffled silence, the first thing i will always come home to.
in front of the painting of automedon, tall and lean, stripped bare and craning himself skyward,
i bud with an envy of ugliness when the hand of one woman slips itself around the other. blaze
of longing catching against the edges of canvas, scentless smoke winding around my wrists.
desire is just such an unfortunate thing. curdled beneath marrow, refusing to unjaw even an inch
of flesh, splitting itself open on hunger. i search for bodies willing to bridle mine, and find them easily —
it staunches the wound, turns it bruise blue, something to press against. what i really want though
is to be watched in my kitchen, clumsily chopping vegetables. the side of my palm springing red
when my hold slips. the easy graze of a napkin, the delayed sting. someone to wipe me clean.
the horses’ rage is being held in a gnarled grip; still, they remain maddened and brutal and boiling over.
what they know is that they were made to carry the thing they love most to his ruin. what they know
is that they don’t have a choice. what they know is that they will pull back against the hand anyway.
will wrest their heads to mercy. they will try to save what does not want saving. what does inevitability
mean when faced with impossibility. now, i am growing selfish. the woman rests her head on a shoulder.
my gut twists. what i want is ease, knowledge, someone to memorize which parts of me can bear weight,
which pieces need gentleness. last week, someone came into my room and fucked me and i couldn’t stand
to speak afterwards. they left, quiet, and i pretended to be okay in front of the mirror i refuse to clean.
now, i am in this gallery, and it is all collapsing around me: the flare of red, the dread steadily seeping
from my gum line. i want the horses to be set free. i want the horses to be forced to bear their burden. i want
automedon’s hands to blister with what he’s demanding. i want the women on the bench to look over and
see me, the tear tracks gathering against my cheekbones. i want to be frothing and pathetic in public. i want
a hand against the blade of my shoulder, guiding me, and me resisting the kindness of it, believing i know a
better way. that harshness will protect me from an aimed hand like a foal who hasn’t been properly broken.
what will kill achilles is not the horses. it is not the arrow or paris or helen. it is patroclus, cold and dead.
it is the rage, brilliant and white and hot. it is the want, the insurmountable need to change what happened
and being helpless to do anything but fly into it, lethally reckless. it is dragging hector’s body. it is the first time
he ever allowed himself to be touched in the dim of a tent. it is the last time before he knows what that means.
the horses do not know this. the women on the bench do not know this. it doesn’t matter. what matters
is the horses love achilles. what matters is hands winding through hair. what matters is i am still sitting,
my legs falling asleep. everything is moving forward around me. soon automedon will tame the creatures
and turn them towards fate. soon the woman will take the other’s arm and together leave the room. soon,
i will be here alone. waiting with the buzzing lights for achilles to return whole. beautiful. anything but red.
LIP MANEGIO is a writer & dyke from New England whose poetry has appeared in Glass: A Journal of Poetry, Puerto del Sol, Muzzle Magazine, and Tin House. He also works as a designer & printmaker, and serves as editor in chief at Ginger Bug Press. Manegio is also the author of We’ve All Seen Helena (Game Over Books, 2019).
DONNA VITUCCI lives in North Carolina, where she enjoys reading, yoga, hiking, cooking and gardening. You can read about her novels at donna d. vitucci – Magic Masterminds. After a mostly writer’s life, Donna began painting in 2022. While she’s been publishing stories, novels, poems, and slices of memoir since 1990, it’s her visual art that occasionally announces her these days in online literary magazines such as Glacial Hills Review, Anti-Heroin Chic, Perceptions Magazine, Chestnut Review, and more. She is a member of Alamance Artisans Guild, and her work can be viewed on Facebook at Donna Vitucci, artist and at Donna D. Vitucci | Alamance Artisans Guild.
