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…