Having ploughed the ocean to its iron rim,
late in the day our warrior comes home.
The world, it seems, has nothing left to give
except his aging face,
except the memory
of captives mooning at the ruined wall,
dreaming of that high city by the sea
they longed to drown in.
He lets the picture lie
folded like the trousseau
stored in the chest in his ancestral hall—
lavender-scented rough cool sheets unused.
But wartime laundry flaps behind his gaze.
Offal and blood take on the shine of sand,
the specious cleanliness of what’s behind.
Nothing to do but live the years to come.
-
Nostos
This article originally appeared in The New Criterion, Volume 9 Number 5, on page 54
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