To Achilles, in the Afterlife

This allusion to Achilles is inspired by two poems: Louise Gluck's The Triumph of Achilles and William Carlos Williams' To Mark Antony, in Heaven. But while Gluck's poetic thesis focuses on the human or carnal side of Achilles, mine is on his ultimate defeat brought about by his inevitable and absolute separation from Patroclus, who has drunk from the river of forgetfulness, the river Lethe. - H.P. Atilano

To Achilles, in the Afterlife

"You can keep your wrath while your countrymen go down in ruin, I cannot.
Give me your armour. If they think I am you... We might yet drive back the
enemy." - Patroclus to Achilles, The Iliad by Homer


By the River Lethe you must have passed and wept --
Wept long and hard over those footprints on the banks;
Remembering the friend you loved, your mortal half;
Remembering how he smelt of the Aegean Sea when he sweats;
Remembering how many times he cheated death
As if he, like you, is blest by Styx.

But immortal he was not; foolhardy was he --
By donning your armour, to Hades he fled.

And here you come, Achilles -- a lifetime too late!
So by the River Lethe you must have passed and wept.