Katrina Kaye

I was not made of metal
but there was iron in my hold.

It took a tamer of horses,
but once bridled,
I absorbed my part
like husband’s body.

I dressed him,
helmet and breast plate,
securing sword and shield
with a kiss too genuine and devout
to be any less than natural wife.

A woman of battlement,
I never pleaded the gods for his return,
I demanded it.

I waited for him,
patient in bed chamber,
silently sewing white to purple,
knowing once echoing screams subdued
and red sun subsided,
he would need me
to sooth dirt from face and eyes,
tend split scabs, bandage newly broken skin.

I was tenderness
to a tyrannical time.

But not all husbands
return from battle.
Front doors receive knocks
instead of familiar sways,
armor remains on front line,
flags are folded and delivered.

The last sensation I felt
was husband ripped from arms.

Resonating through me
was the tangle of limbs
dangling from Achilles’ chariot,
skin scraping from face in laps
around Trojan walls.

I regressed to wide eyed beast
as child was torn from hip,
body muzzled, reined, and
led from home.

I didn’t stomp my hooves
as smoke slithered fortress walls,
brick collapsed to dust,
glory crumbled to ash.

Inside husband’s skin,
as though it were my own,
I was struck down,
desecrated, traded for gold.

As though strapped to Hector’s chest,
I burned atop his body.

Clay molded as wife and kilned,
I was made a woman of Troy.
I was made for this.

“Andromache” is previously published in They Don’t Make Memories Like That Anymore (2011).