Elisa Gonzalez

Failed Essay on Oedipus Rex

When I say Daddy
almost—
when I imitating
a priestess I
speak litany
of near-deaths—sister bounces
headfirst off
the grand piano and
brother’s neck stretches
like a cartoon spring
and his feet—wizardlike
his feet up and up—
as my mother’s
skull flew into the wall
as her teeth ducked deep
into her mouth surprised red then flew
out like—like what
when in these
conditions every
scrap of
poetic language—like a gas flame
quelled—like
a punctured eardrum—fails
us as the prosecutor’s did—
his mouth said insufficient
evidence of harm—
still I
prosecute
my words—
when I imitating a child call
him Daddy
—when family
grief floats
in the blood—when grief’s
a wheel
steering pain
into time—when there’s no
time for
irony’s shenanigans—
when I have
to say Daddy handed
back ourselves
to ourselves
almost dead can you
blame me for speaking
in the tenor
of Sophocles—
when tragedy swings
its red cloak
and blocks the light and when it does—when
what good are eyes
to me—when time
scrapes—time when
what failure the
truth when
there’s no help—but when the gods
the gods they
do at last—when
the gods they do at last
go down—when
Daddy’s dead in one
bloody
funny adaptation—