Garnet Poems: An Anthology of Connecticut Poetry Since 1776

First Blood

Doug Anderson (1943– ) First Blood He didn’t know until he’d seen Troy’s towers spiny in the haze, heard keel striking sand like a javelin, that he carried the house of the fathers on his back, didn’t know the weight of it until he’d swung a short-sword all day against Hector’s lot, arms aching, thighs spattered with gore, cheek layed open by a close cut. That night as he lay shivering awake, he clung to these images: the handful of olives he gave the shepherd girl, the warmth of the Aegean as he swam toward his father’s boat with the wineskin, the smell of the blossoming groves at home, the lemons bright in the moonlight. ...