timeo danaos et dona ferentis              
—Aeneid, 2.49              

A night and a day and a night.
                                                    Words came easily
Then, but now has come the time to endure
Close darkness, to breathe air fouled with odors
Of rank bodies wedged tightly between
Flesh and wood.
                            While muscles twitch, then cramp,
Voices hold back groans from alien ears.
Thigh crushed against thigh, arms bound in armor,
Shoulders and calves bitten by cinches,
Already captives, we fear our discovery.

If they cannot hear, can they not smell
Our treachery? Are they so eager to drink in
Sinon's tale of woe?
                                  Still we stand
Ankle deep in our own waste, waiting.
How much longer before bodies can relax,
The rattle of armor covered by the commotion
Of dragging a horse inside city walls?

Behind me rasps the uneven nervous breathing
Of Neoptolemus, while through clenched teeth
Anxious Menelaus hisses, and lower down the calming
Whisper of steady Ulysses counsels endurance.

A few hours more, once within their citadel,
A few hours more of foul air and standing
Ankle deep in our own waste, waiting
For Sinon to spring the latch and unleash
The mechanism.
                             Then will we repay
The debts of war, drenching their sacred altars
With the blood of priests and women, while
Shrieking warriors pierce the night with welcome
Noises of victory.
                            Then will Priam's town
Light the sky, burning our horse offering
To the Goddess gazing down on Ilium.

© 1992 by Michael L. Hall