THE TROJAN WOMEN (EURIPIDES) Poem by Peter Verhelst

Where is that singing coming from? Lead flows
into the theatre, eddying around table legs. There are
marble columns with veils of heat panting against them.

Where are those women coming from? They hold
their dresses up above their knees, as if wading into the sea.

Hollows under the stage deform their voices.
Just before sinking, they pull their tongues out of their mouths
and fling them over their shoulders. Silence.

We, male and female dummies, sit in the seats with faces
now blank, almost no information regarding age or origin.
On stage there is nothing where something should be
and something where there should be nothing. Lead plates

slide across each other, singing plaintively. We clamber
ever higher over shoulders, bellies, a face. The ceiling
sweating red-haired animals.