Helen in Situ

 

The citadel is still.

Empty. I wait inside

 

my lover

in our locked room.

 

There are days,

like today, when he

 

comes for me

and it looks as if

 

he’s cried,

and I am glad.

 

His curls smell

 

of horses and orpiment.

Aphrodite

 

snaps her whip

of hair behind her

 

like a grey colt—

she’s always hovering

 

while we fuck.

 

It hurts

to touch

 

every part of him,

and I like that. I bite 

 

the skin above

my nails until I bleed.

 

Now, he’s picking up

his lyre;

 

his crude music

once was as good

 

a place as Lethe

to disappear. Imagine

 

my husband’s anger.

I watched his ships

 

arrive like black flies

on a corpse

 

of shoreline.

Desire has no loyalty,

 

and I am many 

things besides a wife— 

 

he will learn this too.