Fourth of July, 2012
By Robyn Schiff
I remember a performance
of Antigone in which she
threw herself on the floor of
the universe and picked up
a piece of dust. Is that
the particle? It startled me.
Was it Scripted? Directed?
Driven? I am a girl, Antigone.
I have a sister. We love
each other terribly. I am a woman
of property. The milk of the footlights.
The folds of the curtain. I remember
a performance of Antigone. She stooped.
There was a wild particle.
It was glorified by my distance.
I heard the hooves of the dust.
The ticking of the script
calibrating oblivion. I saw
the particle hanging
and Antigone needed something
to do with her hands
and she did it.
Copyright Credit: Robyn Schiff, "Fourth of July, 2012" from A Woman of Property. Copyright © 2016 by Robyn Schiff. Used by permission of Penguin Books, an imprint of Penguin Publshing Group, a division of Penguin Random House LLC.
Source: Poetry (December 2014)