Truce in Troy

I sing, o Elena, an ode to you! I take an instrument and twang it,

it’s no harp, but I make a melody of this hum.

Let my song be water, flooding,

splashing your expectations.

Answer me with detergent:

your gasps will be soap bubbles.

Give this man what he’s looking for. Reciprocate.

Are you really looking at me, Helen?

Observe how I wade in this swampy terrain.

Poems make me mad as a fortune-teller,

a butcher. I offer my palm, you give me yours:

bloody raw meat. What I write is your future. And mine.

So, Elena, I’ll teach you! See me scrub out the blood

of desire, the sweat of dreams; I want clean white

images and metaphors.

Let’s have a division of labor and subvert it right away.

Now you teach me to love deeply, live a good life,

suffer and heal, try harder than I ever have.

When your voice returns to my ears, a crooked echo,

full of static and a new melody,

I’ll praise you, muse for the blessings

and for the urge to plunge my hands

into the dirty suds

of another poem.