Women's History Month - guest post by Jenny Blackford
Their Cold Eyes Pierced My Skin
by
Jenny Blackford
Two years ago, my reputation was as clean as yours.
It wasn't safe-
a woman's name's not safe until she's dead,
sometimes not even then-
but it was safe enough. The young men of the village
and their tender peach-like buttocks
never moved me, nor did the girls,
however soft their hair or bright their eyes,
nor the worn-out husks of older folk,
tired from scrabbling out their lives
on our unforgiving stony mountainside
far from Mycenae.
But the two centaurs who hunted in the valley,
the year I turned eighteen-
oh, they were different,
alive and free.
Their hair curled down their backs like wild black waterfalls;
their cold eyes pierced my skin.
My fingers ached to comb their tails,
to smooth their strongly-muscled flanks.
I told no one, of course. Who could I tell?
My virtuous ever-weaving aunt? No.
I could not even whisper at my mother's grave,
sorrowing her ghost.
Two years ago, as I have said, my name was clean. These days,
the gossips in the street need only point
at the spring grass under the trees,
and the boy child who frolics there: my son.
But they don't know the half of it.
I succumbed, not to a local man or youth,
but to the lure of shining hooves
and glossy hides. Of course, there's more:
for any mountain girl who's ever milked a ewe or two, perhaps a goat,
has seen the ram or he-goat led to her in spring,
his huge balls heavy in their leather sack.
My centaurs were the same: formidable.
I loved them both, inseparably, as they loved me
And one another.
So, for a time, I truly lived.
My centaurs hunted hare and deer; I tickled fish;
I learned their summer songs, and danced with them, and drank their wine,
lolling on soft sweet grass far from my father and his farm-
but autumn came.
I saw the two I loved watching the birds make arrows in the sky
as they flew south;
soon my horse-men must go,
wild things that they were.
They stroked my hair and kissed the rounding mound
low on my abdomen: our child.
I cried and sulked, and was a fool.
They sang me songs of long-ruined palaces,
of stars fallen to earth,
of queens who wept gold tears.
I would not go with them;
they could not stay.
My lovers galloped south. I lingered for a month,
sure they would return for me-their love-
but I was wrong.
When winter came, I had no choice.
I walked the bitter path, stony and steep, back to my father's house.
Despite his threats, I would not name the man who took my honor.
How could I have?
The priestess shook her head, when in my fear
I asked what to expect: a foal,
to turn my father's world completely upside down? A boy?
The goddess could not be second-guessed, she said;
children bring joy and pain.
I had not hoped for much;
her own mind has been hazed with sorrow,
since the night her daughter went to the naiads' spring,
and did not return.
After my longest day and night of pain, my aunt held up my baby boy:
ten tiny fingers, ten tiny toes.
No curling mane, no swishing tail.
Life would be easier for him that way, I knew.
But when I closed my eyes
and touched his feet,
I felt not baby flesh but tiny hooves.
I smiled a secret smile.
My boy. Our boy.
I weave and spin, as women must, and look out from the door
as my son scampers on the grass
under the oaks.
Is that a tail flicking in the sun?
I blink and it's not there.
I blink again, and smile to see
his shining hooves.
First published in The Pedestal Magazine Issue 70
http://www.thepedestalmagazine.com/gallery.php?item=22713
by
Jenny Blackford
Two years ago, my reputation was as clean as yours.
It wasn't safe-
a woman's name's not safe until she's dead,
sometimes not even then-
but it was safe enough. The young men of the village
and their tender peach-like buttocks
never moved me, nor did the girls,
however soft their hair or bright their eyes,
nor the worn-out husks of older folk,
tired from scrabbling out their lives
on our unforgiving stony mountainside
far from Mycenae.
But the two centaurs who hunted in the valley,
the year I turned eighteen-
oh, they were different,
alive and free.
Their hair curled down their backs like wild black waterfalls;
their cold eyes pierced my skin.
My fingers ached to comb their tails,
to smooth their strongly-muscled flanks.
I told no one, of course. Who could I tell?
My virtuous ever-weaving aunt? No.
I could not even whisper at my mother's grave,
sorrowing her ghost.
Two years ago, as I have said, my name was clean. These days,
the gossips in the street need only point
at the spring grass under the trees,
and the boy child who frolics there: my son.
But they don't know the half of it.
I succumbed, not to a local man or youth,
but to the lure of shining hooves
and glossy hides. Of course, there's more:
for any mountain girl who's ever milked a ewe or two, perhaps a goat,
has seen the ram or he-goat led to her in spring,
his huge balls heavy in their leather sack.
My centaurs were the same: formidable.
I loved them both, inseparably, as they loved me
And one another.
So, for a time, I truly lived.
My centaurs hunted hare and deer; I tickled fish;
I learned their summer songs, and danced with them, and drank their wine,
lolling on soft sweet grass far from my father and his farm-
but autumn came.
I saw the two I loved watching the birds make arrows in the sky
as they flew south;
soon my horse-men must go,
wild things that they were.
They stroked my hair and kissed the rounding mound
low on my abdomen: our child.
I cried and sulked, and was a fool.
They sang me songs of long-ruined palaces,
of stars fallen to earth,
of queens who wept gold tears.
I would not go with them;
they could not stay.
My lovers galloped south. I lingered for a month,
sure they would return for me-their love-
but I was wrong.
When winter came, I had no choice.
I walked the bitter path, stony and steep, back to my father's house.
Despite his threats, I would not name the man who took my honor.
How could I have?
The priestess shook her head, when in my fear
I asked what to expect: a foal,
to turn my father's world completely upside down? A boy?
The goddess could not be second-guessed, she said;
children bring joy and pain.
I had not hoped for much;
her own mind has been hazed with sorrow,
since the night her daughter went to the naiads' spring,
and did not return.
After my longest day and night of pain, my aunt held up my baby boy:
ten tiny fingers, ten tiny toes.
No curling mane, no swishing tail.
Life would be easier for him that way, I knew.
But when I closed my eyes
and touched his feet,
I felt not baby flesh but tiny hooves.
I smiled a secret smile.
My boy. Our boy.
I weave and spin, as women must, and look out from the door
as my son scampers on the grass
under the oaks.
Is that a tail flicking in the sun?
I blink and it's not there.
I blink again, and smile to see
his shining hooves.
First published in The Pedestal Magazine Issue 70
http://www.thepedestalmagazine.com/gallery.php?item=22713