When Odysseus fell off his horse
in the courtyard dust, nobody laughed.
As waves of miniature tsunami tickled
the sides of the water trough, not a stir
in the stable boy, tying and untying
nooses in the shed. Nor did the waiting-girl,
whose aberrant back he’d lashed once more
that morning, work up a smirk
when he tripped on dizzy feet and landed
face first in the shit. In fact, nothing moved
at all. The air hovered still as a bubble
as he got up and dusted down his thighs.
Then one noise - a slow and careful tearing,
a scalpel slit in the sphere of time, and then
a sucking, a taking-in of truth to the hot dark forge
of his throat. Here his life was melted down
and recast into tales for others spaces, other halls,
where he told his waiting audience of how
he galloped Polydorus’ strong backed stallion
to fetch the raging boar and have it home
for dinner. And you, the listener,
don’t see any hint of this sly industry;
lulled, then hooked, you don’t catch a thing
but his mouth, his grin and his tongue
carving up a tale with the sharpness
of a fishwife’s blade, as she guts bass
and tosses the dark innards to the dogs and gulls
whose rabid beaks always look like laughter.
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