"Pentheus in the Mirror" by Duncan Slagle
The following poem is a brief selection from our Fall/ Winter 2019 print issue, accompanied by an audio recording of the poet reading their work. Click here to purchase the full issue, which features poetry, fiction, nonfiction, and art by more than 30 brilliant contributors.
Pentheus in the Mirror
The boys made a list
of prettiest girls & featured
my name at the bottom. As a joke, while boyish;
plump with guilt in glass & bad solutions to save
my shape. I tried duct tape; wearing a small
to redistribute weight. As a joke, I layered
six uniform shirts
& praised the pounds
of cloth suffocating me into easier breath.
My heft summed up by the quick stroke
of ink, thin as a pinky probing the throat.
The list grew as I did; stretched into dangerous
fabrics. Flashy in drag for practice—one night—
until the habit clings until it isn’t a habit.
I crossed my name out with a widow’s flair
for theatrics—the list of boys fuzzing with mold
in my mind’s compact mirror. Should I pretend
the desire was new? The list of girls I still
want to be is mental.
I’ll never write the names
down. I pin men to
my wall & stare so hard
through them, my eyes spin, until I’m dancing
flawless in the right gown. Erasing the chalk
outline into a glutted moon’s worth of light.
Boy is an orbit I throw myself out of, into
the endless question—how can I believe
the desire will ever be answered? If costume
is flesh, I starve off season & come back
famous for my wasting. Technician: Magician:
Tyrant editing herself with violence—alternative
to death I choose catharsis—the weight of
every jaw slacking as I enter the room.
A note from the poet:
”I wrote “Pentheus in the Mirror" while I was reading several different translations of Euripides’ Bacchae and reflecting on my adolescent experiences with gender deviance, specifically as a fat person. The notion of “costume as flesh” stems from Anne Carson’s Bakkhai, and the questions of (in modern terms) gender performance + presentation she elucidates, which Euripides’ tragedy involves in much subtler ways.”
Ducan Slagle is a Queer poet and performer studying Ancient Greek and Creative Writing at the University of Wisconsin-Madison as a First Wave scholar. Duncan’s poems have appeared or are forthcoming in The Adroit Journal, Palette Poetry, BOAAT Journal, Vinyl Poetry, Hobart, The Shallow Ends, and others. Duncan currently lives in Athens, Greece.
