When you say it, it is me
you are speaking about,
but it is not me you are
speaking to. These men, they think
of other things, of their
shields and the blood of their
cousins, of dragging a man
through the desert, sand
in the hollow at the base of his neck.
The girl Helen fingers her neck and
paces around the room restlessly.
She and I, we wait for warriors,
come home to murderers in our beds.