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I had--I swear--
the scrofula of Thessaly
under my nails: memorabilia
of calciferous seas, chipped
horsehair, the hesive sediment
of his blood.
 While Andromache
lay under the battlements, stitching
coral to mother-of-pearl
like any tailor's wife,
I
calibrated the weight he waggled
onto my sword, the needle
of a meter his own shadow
crushed: seven, maybe,
for the fingers
my blade left him, three yokes of
knuckles in the pattering
dirt,
honor
the mating call
of his awful lover-god.
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