Scraps of an Achilles
He is a summer revolutionary, turning
with the solar year:
having passed out of his mother’s
marine safekeeping,
he does the work of wind:
a verbal scar on the strand
ten minutes of martial music
Call him the waxing season, saltwater
at high tide answers the moon,
challenging all satellite
*
It is right that Achilles should be beautiful
and fatal: his glory walks hand in hand with death
past ruined statues of his boyish virtue:
his box of broken boys bled dry,
his skin unmarred by history
or the weather called remorse
Caught by the shadow of his heel
whose half-god flesh couldn’t be caught,
he remains a hero of the sun
