by Diane Fahey
For every spotlit myth
there are a million shadows.
Desire gained Helen the privilege
of walking free, in any place,
among unseen women subject
to hate, misuse.
Now, after a royal marriage,
a headstrong lover, a war,
what will be left to her?
Native wit teaches the lesson
that age will enforce:
she knows their ultimately
embodied woman is a ghost,
that time breaks down
the most flawless image,
cracking its smoothness.
Each dawn she walks alone
to the sea, steps into
flesh-pricking coolness.
Breathing slowly, she wades
against the tide, then,
at her own moment, enters
that flux, that tension,
her body poised, moving freely,
inside the wave.
Last updated January 14, 2019