Ichor leaks from my Philtatos’ belly--gold

From eyes that glow red, quiet tears

He wears my armor still

My helmet

My spear

And the dark blood of Sarpedon

Is still strewn across the bronze-beaten lion

Of my chest plate that rests nearby

Weeping too

I’ve seen the face of Iphigenia

Throat slit in her wedding linens

I’ve ripped flesh and sinew from men who slept

Who screamed, who begged

Anatolian pleas dribbling from bloody lips

I interrupted with the same hands

That hold the dying world now

If it takes his death for me to know

What a prideful machine I am

I shall make it known to all

Aristos Achaion is not I

The third in killing my Philtatos

Must die

I breathe to him,

“Patroclus.”