Title: Helen of Troy

Author: Bob Orr

In: Sport 41: 2013

Publication details: Fergus Barrowman, 2014, Wellington

Part of: Sport

Keywords: Verse Literature

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Sport 41: 2013

Helen of Troy

page 70

Helen of Troy

This is my story—
I was a trophy wife
make no mistake about that
married off to the veteran Menelaus
a silly old fool as shrivelled as last summer’s passionfruit.
I did my best to be an obedient wife
yes it’s true I did indeed launch a ship or two
and I can’t begin to tell you how boring it all soon became
those long-winded speeches and the stifling heat
myself a beautiful woman in a world of back-slapping men.
When I eloped with Paris how could I’ve foretold
that my affair with a sunburnt shepherd boy
would end in the complete destruction of Troy?
His body was a herb that went straight to my head.
Each evening the great arc of the Mediterranean night sky
a million stars held in the cusp of one moon.
Ah Troy a city kissed by Asia’s warm wind
if only I’d read the small print of the gods.
The fleet that rode in through the breakers
as if propelled by some hand that fate had decreed.
It was all such a long time ago
a conflict now almost forgotten.
Each generation reveres its own scars.
Remember me—
a dust cloud out of Africa
the shadow of a bird on the sea.
The first modern woman.
Standing alone in a field of red poppies
sometimes I find myself weeping.