[Down on your kness, Achilles]

 Down on your knees, Achilles.  Farther down.

Now forward on your hands and put your face into the dirt,

And scrub it to and fro.

Grief has you by the hair with one

And with the forceps of its other hand

Uses your mouth to trowel the dogshit up;

Watches you lift your arms to Heaven; and then

Pounces and screws your nose into the filth.

Gods have plucked drawstrings from your head,

And from the templates of your upper lip

Modelled their bows.

Not now. Not since

Your grieving reaches out and pistol-whips

That envied face, until

Frightened to bear your black, backbreaking agony alone,

You sank, throat back, thrown back, your voice

Thrown out across the sea to reach your Source.

War Music by Christopher Logue, published by Farrar, Straus & Giroux. Copyright © 1988 Christopher Logue.