body brimming with achilles’ heels
BY CHRISTOS KALLI
I
I step out of the womb-crater, out my creator,
knowing that I was made so that my mother can breastfeed
herself –
her blood weaves on me my first dress
nurses rinse with cold, black waterdrops.
II
Thetis, the seaweed-dress wearing
mother, saw a God between her legs the day
of Achilles’ birth. How boys forget
that a mother’s arrowhead-sized fingers
iron silk skin and confuse blood for ichor.
Vulnerable Achilles. Achilles not erect.
Achilles on his knees. Tear-salted Achilles
begs. Achilles who bit more than he could
chew and choked.
III
Instead of a breast, I have a heel
on my tongue. Mother is three tree-shaped shadows
away and praying for the boy to wake up
a God. And yet, the heel on my chest
is growing. What else but to accept the sentence?
What else but to pretend that each
of my Achilles’ Heels is a keyhole waiting
for its key.
