Of his resemblance to his shipwrecked father
he would hear no end. His ruddy complexion
and the shape of his head, the not-yet-calloused
hands and feet. For Helen, it was the salt-cut
expression of his eyes, as that of a man
accustomed to supplicating some furious sea.
Above all, how he sailed a crew to Pylos
for so much as a rumor of one thought dead,
then flew on chariots through the open country
to Sparta, taking nothing for a guide save
the footfalls of a god and the lion in his chest.
