Homeric

Michael Bazzett


 

In the old stories 

just before the spear
tip punches

out through the torso

it often catches
on the white snag of viscera

or the tough
tissue of the diaphragm –

this makes
a swelling

that for the merest
moment implies

the pointed thing beneath
wants a way out—

in this way
the warrior becomes

a poem
before dying.