Lisa DeSiro
Pandora Speaks
It wasn’t actually a box. It was a jar.
I found it in the basement, not the attic.
But for the sake of diplomacy, let’s say
the container was given to me by the gods.
You know the narrative: I lifted the lid.
The world was blasted with sickness,
evil, death. The consequences of
curiosity. But hope remained behind,
sealed, saved for later. Surely
that counts for something, cosmically.
And who’s to say the other myth
isn’t the truth, the one in which it’s a man
who commits the flammable act?
Women are always blamed. Consider
Eve, as much a scapegoat as me.
She made from a rib, I from clay.
Hasn’t history shown us again and again:
whether female or male, we are
cyclical in nature. Doing what we’re told
until doing the opposite.
Lisa DeSiro is the author of the poetry collectionsHer publications include Labor (Nixes Mate, 2018) and Grief Dreams (White Knuckle Press, 2017), as well as several poems in journals and anthologies. She works for a non-profit organization and is an assistant editor for Indolent Books. She is also a freelance accompanist. Read more at thepoetpianist.com.
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