Achilles best physical feature

Flaying the open wounds with pride and princely ferocity

Letting the words flow onto paper like silt into the delta

A crutch

Helps the kneeling man

To his or her knees

To his or her feet

And back to back the marks that are made so indelible

By time and space

Growing and flowing like smooth designs of the lustrous new age Achilles

A warrior with no heart to cut out

Just the black and white whimpers

Of the paper cuts hidden right beneath the surface of the skin

Knowing the danger is always still there, underneath the cool, sleek surface

Like fishhooks inlayed into balsa wood and covered with shellac