East Fifth Street: A Poster for the Oresteia

East Fifth Street: A Poster for the Oresteia

East Fifth Street: A Poster for the Oresteia

Pasted bumpily on brick, life-sized. Inside,
in a former foundry’s casting vault, my father in the role
of Agamemnon died. A thin-browed bronze mask skating

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Pasted bumpily on brick, life-sized. Inside,
in a former foundry’s casting vault, my father in the role
of Agamemnon died. A thin-browed bronze mask skating
the bath-stair: “Know that in this House

an archaic anger worked: a child burnt down to soot-marks,v a king and king’s son coursed down the years.” He tookv the subway home at two a.m. He told me “Anne, if you’re empty
and show it, empty inside, you’ll be invisible

to muggers…” I’ve found this true. The audience,
tiptoeing off through the streetlit litter,
sees across the street, in a blackened vitrine,

three hovering shapes. Rag-shrouded heads,
long-skirted army coats and boots; and beneath the rags,
the dewlaps and the smirched muzzles of the Furies.

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