Visiting the Dead
When the wooden horse
was pulled through the gates
of Troy, the warriors inside
stifled their mouths with rags
Odysseus, the leader
Ajax Peneleus Thalpius Leonteus
and a score of others who may
or may not have hit on Helen
not forgetting poor Anticlus
stilled by Odysseus’s
rough hand over his mouth
Once like Trojan tarts
we fooled an undertaker
a fat pleasant man behind
a glossy desk; we shook his hand
told him we were students
investigating burial
practices in the antipodes
The flight upstairs
took us to the carpenter’s
workshop; to a fleet
of toy boats on dry dock
their chrome fittings
glistening in the sun
Bodies were a funny thing
he said, the angle of the flexed
foot could add inches
to his measurements
Shameless we batted our eyes
at the undertaker
told him we were ready
to visit the parlour
Three bodies lay
bundled on a bench
the puff all gone
from their sails
That night after the slaughter
the city lay smoking
we drank wine in the dorm
told glorious lies to our friends.
