Rime of the Modern Pasiphae

Nivedita Dey

I parent a primal poison

womb inside my skull

Head, the strongest love

Tail, the biggest betrayal

 

I bear a stamped face

behind my well-masked

Count crow’s feetgrowing

Longer, uglier than hers

 

She spills me as a vomit

She pronounces me a puke

My own Lady Macbeth, she

I, her foreboding forbidden fruit

 

The twin torments within

Minotaur under my skin

Half Hamlet, half Ophelia, I

Cleft between love and loathing

 

Forever hope, forever die