Oh Achilles

[Valerie Please]

I have what might be a very stupid read on this, but for me Achilles is a dead cat. The duvet, like a mummy, but breathing…memories crawl out on all fours. It’s like you’re remembering a dead cat?

Anyway, even if I’m completely off base, the images are so beautifully rendered here.

Oh Achilles

I’ll remember you
wrapped in a duvet
like a mummy but breathing,
at peace with the blackness
and silence of wells
from where memories climb out
at night, on all fours.


Oh, Achilles,
the fields are reeking 
with ghosts.