Achilles

Achilles (for David Beckham)

Carol Ann Duffy

Myth’s river- where his mother dipped him, fished him, a slippery golden boyflowed on, his name on its lips. Without him, it was prophesised,
they would not take Troy.

Women hid him, concealed him in girls’ sarongs; days of sweetmeats, spices, silver songs…
but when Odysseus came,

with an athlete’s build, a sword and a shield, he followed him to the battlefield, the crowd’s roar, and it was sport, not war,

his charmed foot on the ball…
but then his heel, his heel, his heel…