Galatea

poem

Iris Shaw, September 2023

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In the old house

At the bottom of the hill

The statue-woman lives

And does not die

Troy’s long burned away

Odysseus gone

Under the sky

Medea haunts the fountain

Muttering nearby

But the statue-woman lives

And cannot die

*

Orestes lies in Asphodel

Theseus in hell’s dark eye

Icarus is dust

Who thought that he could fly

And the statue-woman lives —

Lives quiet and cries

In the house she speaks

To no man’s reply:

Her flesh remembers stone

And will not die.