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CALLALOO

ACHILLES AS A YOUNG GIRL

by Dante Micheaux

Great hero of the Trojan War aside,

he must have been beautiful,
birthed from the womb of a Mediterranean nymph
with immortality and immortal passions:
Achilles, who learned of the world naked,
on the sinewy back of a beast.
Lycomedes must have drooled over
his boyish haunches flexing beneath the peplos.
Imagine the shock of poor Deidameia
when she discovered a mans flesh surging
between the legs of her girlish love.
And Pyrrhus, the product of what
appeared to be two maidens?
Thank the gods, one of his mothers
turned out to be the strong
iron-hearted man-slaying Achilles.
And Odysseus? One mustnt forget
his role in all this. He lured a boy
out of the girl seduced by weapons.
Noble cheat, pedophile, all honors for a man
of Greece, king of Ithaca no less.
It is no wonder Achilles fell in love with an Amazon.
Penthesilia reminded him of his youth.
But he had to slay her, to conquer the longing
for shiny fibulae and a hem to hide his delicate heels.

112

Callaloo 29.1 (2006) 112