Today’s Note from a Mythical Woman is an exchange between Philomela and Procne, and is sent in by Elodie Olson-Coons.
Elodie’s writing has appeared in The Literateur and McSweeney’s among many others, and she is a regular columnist for Work in Prowess. She blogs here, and can be followed on twitter: @elllode.
Philomela and Procne
PROCNE
Sister, do not shout
back.
Do not expose your
self
like film.
They’ll dip you in hot copper.
They will strip your tongue away.
You’re just a sparrow
They will tear out your
song.
PHILOMELA
go on and
wear your soft brown
thriftshop
coat.
wear those
heels
down.
trill your soft jazz song.
You can be a
falcon
you can be a
falcon.
PROCNE
I know how you have sung to
dirty and beloved ears.
I saw when your blood was blue with shame.
You slut-walk.
Meanwhile your sister saw-wings, saw-wings
away.
PHILOMELA
I know you love him and
I forgive you. I sing for you, too,
sister.
PROCNE
You sing for no-one.
You have become dumb.
My husband made you
dumb
when he jackknifed into you.
PHILOMELA
Oh, I have a knife
and juniper and butter and my teeth and my
grandmother’s oven.
I have a taxi number.
I have fucking pepperspray.
PROCNE
Oh, they are always furred and
roaming.
And today you are wearing
that?
PHILOMELA
You are a wolf, you roam the streets
home.
Be a wolf.
I prophesise an
epidemic.
I see the turning of the tide.
PROCNE
the nightingales are stitched and
splayed across the branches.
I see the children and the cameras.
In their eyes I see your eyes,
little sister.
PHILOMELA
Look on, sister.
Look up from the glittering
pool
of your drink.
I am not without fear
I am not on the brink
I am
the smallest of turnings.
PROCNE
Most importantly of all, do not get
drunk
do not
get
videotaped.
You are vincible,
my once-beloved one.
PHILOMELA
And you are growing old.
Look: how it is marked on my face. I do not heal. Despite and still
I go out.
I am not alone.
I am the tide.
I am survived by my familiars –
the oak and the pomegranate and
the wolf cub lapping oil from a lamp.
PROCNE
You are nothing but a match,
a blackened piece of tinder,
sister. I long to protect you.
PHILOMELA
Meanwhile the hoopoe sings.
Morning, and Other Stories. 