In none of the versions do stars reel
from their courses as Orpheus plays.
Always the stones, roots, rivers
that cannot keep still at his song.
So suppose it’s not just his song
but a woman, singing back to him.
Not Eurydice, with her mouth full of dark.
An ordinary woman, in plain dress,
singing of ordinary loss. The child
turned against her, the lover gone,
her womb drying. Or maybe a sick mother,
a brother on drugs, a boss who thinks
equality might not be a bad idea, but where
is it supported in the natural order?
A woman who sings not in patterned forms
but according to the rhythm of her blood
so that some of the songs rush,
some are slower than the slowest
shoes, unlaced, too big, dragged along
an alley street. A woman who sings
of kitchens and weeds and the fixed stars
we started with . . .
And then suppose over time not one
but thousands of women sing like this
as not one but thousands of rivers
carry songs past where we stand.
Or say it’s the birds singing,
opening their mouths at dawn
to sing of where we’ve been and gone,
of where we’ll go and be tomorrow.
Wouldn’t a woman know enough to sing
along? And doesn’t it make sense
that when the head of Orpheus floats
downriver, the mouth that sings
is no more than the ordinary mouth
of man or woman, reed or river,
grieving over time?
