No Bird but an Invisible Thing

Traditionally Homer was blind and therefore illiterate.

I reached under the lampshade to turn off the light.

Picture Cyrus wedged into his cubbyhole at home.

Blind Homer wandered the byways plying his song.

In the real one I'm up late trying not to make any noise.

Cyrus's outward pose was normal

The story can start anywhere

Hadrian gazed at his protege,

So is foreknowledge then an essential aspect of the story?

That night three women cornered Homer.

Look.

The slave Briseis was left alone in Agamemnon's tent.

The record is incomplete,

He was Orpheus and down he went

Still I spend the whole day

Sing O Muse the anger of Achilles

The characters in the story tell each other

Time fascinated Cyrus.

He is dead.

Even as they were fishing

Trying not to think about money

Ugly short gnarled he

Maureen turned the knob and entered Cyrus' apartment.

Cyrus wandered along a shady river.

This is good, he thought,

What are you thinking she said

Maureen pushed the door open

The distance that seems necessary

Please stop crying dear said Agamemnon

And what kind of love is it

They sat in his kitchen

And if you were always in the now

Homer was tired of singing.

She came out squinting

Postscriptum

I feel numb, said Cyrus,

Pat and Mike went fishing.

Finally it came to me what they saw.

Look at what?

Beyond the margin of the page

He is dead.

Only Patroklos mattered, she realized

Let me tell you how she saved my hand:

He is dead.

Maureen found Cyrus's digital recording