SPOKEN BY THE SENTRY AT ACHILLES'S TENT
Doug Anderson

Why did the girl Briseis weep for Patroclus?
Taken from her father by Achilles, raped,
then seized by Agamnon, raped again.
Then Agamemnon gave her back to bribe Achilles
to return so the sea would not froth red
with our cut throats. But upon returning to Achilles tent
she saw Patroclus, dead, his stiffening beauty
stretched out on a cot, the demi-god insane with grief.
I watched her throw herself across the corpse and sob.
They say even Achilles's horses wept for Patroclus
but why whis girl, sixteen, who could not wish
any of us well? Perhaps because she saw
her own spoiled body lying there, her ruined life.
Someday, she will be taken back to Phthia
where she will serve whomever Achilles takes as a bride.
Perhaps she will make a little sphere around her body,
A faint light visible only to slaves and other concubines
in which she'll dream a young girl running
along the sea with the surf cold on her ankles.
And perhaps she will weave the scenes into
fine cloth for her lady. Patroclus was seventeen,
the boy who speaks to you the same.
Brought here because I can put an arrow
through a halter ring at a hundred meters,
tell a hummock from a creeping man on a moonless night
but most important because I can keep my outh shut,
my feelings hid, even what I feel now.
I Spiros, son of a sandalmaker, entrust to you this secret:
I would take her home and love her as she is,
lay my hand on her heart and leave it there
until she remembers that she has one.