Achilles’ Feast, Achilles’ Shield, Achilles’ Tent,

as told by the tortoise,
who had arrived first.

He was tying his bow tie
and kept imagining how
from somewhere his mother’s many
slave-girls would come in.
They would help him.
They would tie a knot.
Utterly perfect.
They would straighten his collar.
They would brush the lapels of his tailcoat.
They would bow in silence.
Down to the ground.
Backing out.
In his distant homeland.

Gazing at the echo
of himself
and the small fragments
of his face
coming back
from the shield,
the stand-in mirror,
and into his breath,
hidden in his cupped hands,
he quietly muttered:
“It’s time for a feast, Helen.
Not for heroes...”

A little later
the east wind,
lover of the waves
and sorcerer of the rocks,
was licking the tent from outside,
promising her unthinkable delights,
and she, the weak one,
easily seduced,
remembered
a tortoise’s tale
about a little girl
who went to the ball
in the finest carriage and
with the whitest horses.

Her dreams never fell asleep
before midnight,
and she, so as not to be left alone,
stayed awake with them.