The Woman Turns Herself Into A Fish
Robinson McClellan
About this work:
This piece was commissioned and recorded by the vocal trio Eos (Kathryn Mulvihill, Michele Kennedy, Jenna-Claire Kemper), based in New York City.
The recording, made by the commissioning ensemble, will be published in the Spring 2005 issue of Yale's annual graduate arts magazine Palimpsest.
TEXT:
The Woman Turns Herself into a Fish
Unpod
the bag,
the seed.
Slap
the flanks back.
Flatten
paps.
Make finny
scaled
and chill
the slack
and dimple
of the rump.
Pout
the mouth,
brow the eyes
and now
and now
eclipse
in these hips,
these loins
the moon,
the blood
flux.
It's done.
I turn,
I flab upward
blub-lipped,
hipless
and I am
sexless,
shed
of ecstasy,
a pale
swimmer,
sequin-skinned,
pearling eggs
screamlessly
in seaweed.
It's what
I set my heart on.
Yet
ruddering
and muscling
in the sunless tons
of new freedoms,
still
I feel
a chill pull,
a brightening,
a light, a light,
and how
in my loomy cold,
my greens,
still
she moons
in me.
- Eavan Boland
Copyright 1982 by Eavan Boland, from
An Origin Like Water: Collected Poems 1967-1987 by Eavan Boland.
Used by permission of W.W. Norton & Company, Inc.
Year composed: 2004
Duration: 00:05:30
Ensemble type: Voice, Solo or With Chamber or Jazz Ensemble:Two or More Solo Voices without Accompaniment
Instrumentation: 2 Soprano, 1 Alto