Pale days had long begun to stretch out Until the effigy in motion forgot About weeks and hours and better days Without the tedious dinners for one.
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The wife failed to see, as wives often do, Frailties writ large across a husband’s heart, Or maybe she’d believed since a little girl In her man would beat a heart of steel.
Meanwhile, To the unsouled effigy It would all have been the same To her, to me, and to all the others.
I might have persisted a while longer, If I hadn’t had to decide, How best to escape The confusion of being a man.
Odysseus sacrificed to souls grown pale, Bored with life in the world to come, A drop of blood, an offering of life. What else was my effigy to do?
