Song for Cressida
Risa Pappas
Plucked like a hound’s hair and dropped
into a slow stew, smelted from Chryseis
and Briseis, molded into cast iron to be
cast about on a sea of men’s anger, our
antagonist thumped hard against the
packed sands of 12th century France.
But the French had no more use for her
once she made of the triangle a line
and collapsed her in a heap at the feet
of Boccaccio.
Just as her story was never real
but oft told, so was she abused by Chaucer
and Henryson and false Shakespeare.
“Alas, of me until the world’s end
shall be wrote no good song.”
But she is Cressida, not Cassandra. Her song
need not be an opera, her skin need
not rot. Her days not be swept to bed by her
chained hands.
Oh Cressida, so true and dear
Your everchanging name be known
And always be ye in good cheer
You, a fiction, may write your own
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Risa Pappas is a poet, filmmaker, writer, editor, audiobook narrator, and public speaker. She has most recently been published in the River Heron Review, Inklette Magazine, and bluntly magazine and is Senior Editor at Tolsun Books. Risa received her MFA in creative writing at Fairleigh Dickinson University. She currently resides near Philadelphia.
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