Helen of Troy, 1993 Quotes

“i watched as they grew legs

and flung themselves over the edge, freedom a thing that first required a great fall. gods of this church. gods of all the others. i am falling and i am asking for so much: a hymn, a pardon, a soft place to land.”
― Maria Zoccola, Helen of Troy, 1993: Poems

“we're frozen on the riverbank, pinned by
a sound that could crack our foundations,
that could transform us, unless we stop it cold.
our children run to touch what is dying—
their fathers, of course, are upstream with the guns.”
― Maria Zoccola, Helen of Troy, 1993: Poems

“i didn’t know i was a person until i stopped being one.”
― Maria Zoccola, Helen of Troy, 1993: Poems

“they offered themselves, their mothers' farms, their fathers' bread, their bodies new-spun from childhood clay. come down to us, , they howled to my window. we'll pelt you like the forest fox. we'll strip you clean, we'll lick you raw. you'll see why trees lie down for the axe. i listened. i went. i never came back.”
― Maria Zoccola, Helen of Troy, 1993: Poems

“...all those weirdos who sit around on message boards
just waiting to lend an ear to some sweet thing who can't
stand one more half hour of driving the dress shirts
to the dry cleaner and buffing the goddamn nogahyde,
who might take a peek at my shapely megabytes
and say oh you poor honey why don't i send you a one-way
plane ticket right out to my castle in beverly hills or san francisco and that would be *that* I swear to christ”
― Maria Zoccola, Helen of Troy, 1993: Poems