Silenced
In the ancient, gruesome story, Philomel
was little more than an ordinary girl.
She went away with her sister, Procne. Then
her sister’s husband, Tereus, given to violence,
raped her once
and said he required her silence
forever. When she whispered but
he finished it all and had her tongue cut out.
Afterwards, she determined to tell her story
another way. She began a tapestry.
She gathered skeins, colours.
She started weaving.
She was weaving alone, in fact, and so intently
she never saw me enter.
An Irish sky was unfolding its wintry colours
slowly over my shoulder. An old radio
was there in the room as well, telling its own
unregarded story of violation.
Now she is rinsing the distances
with greenish silks. Now, for the terrible foreground,
she is pulling out crimson thread.
—Eavan Boland
—found in Domestic Violence (2007)