Gretchen Rockwell: Achilles, Barefoot
Achilles, Barefoot
Impossible. Everybody knows his secret
now. Before, he held his weakness close:
favored thick-soled sandals, greaved
over his heels—both, as only one
would be noticeable. He makes himself
vulnerable, accessible in every way but
this. Not even with Patroclus, the man he holds
closest to his heart and rib. Even there
in that private place, he wraps ankle
in linen and leather, unwilling to be bared.
Not a matter of trust, but self-defense:
to break him there is to break him whole.
This poem originally appeared in our ebook The Queer Body.
Gretchen Rockwell is a queer poet and supplemental instructor of English at the Naval Academy Preparatory School in Newport, RI. Xer work has appeared in Glass: Poets Resist, Into the Void, Noble/Gas Qtrly, Kissing Dynamite, and elsewhere. Gretchen enjoys writing poetry about gender and sexuality, history, space, and unusual connections – find xer at www.gretchenrockwell.com or on Twitter at @daft_rockwell.
