Alpha.

alpha

   this one too has come, like the rest of them carpet-baggers, to try
   his luck at impersonating my husband the unfortunate mortal who was
   fated to incur ancient poseidon's implacable wrath and run the
   gauntlet

   i was a mere bride when i dressed him in his war gear, and through
   tear-filled eyes, bade him goodbye to far-off, not-to-be-mentioned
   illion, where he was to test his skill in deviously planning the
   death of foes

   twenty years have now gone by, twenty long and weary years, in which
   i had to deploy all art known to womankind to keep looking young, my
   figure trim, wear the social public face well, and keep discourse
   high

   i brought up his infant child single-handed from birth to bearded
   youth i denied myself change whilst supervising his, had to be the
   loving caring mother whilst also playing the suffering wife whose
   husband is missing in war

   you cannot bathe a boy, look at art, make a shroud without thinking
   anatomical or physiological: naughty thoughts passed through my mind
   whilst weaving at the loom, idle thoughts; i lived, fended off,
   denied myself

   he was my source of strength: he the pillar that supported the roof
   with its joinery: to bolster my strength, i leaned on him, thus i
   withstood the siege of ikairo's daughter in her husband's hall: a
   greater test than helen ever knew

   distasteful is his name, and so has he been, or encounters with him:
   there are many in hades, dispatched by him or his tricks; there are
   many maimed in body or mangled in heart whose paths crossed his: we
   bathe in tears

   but, is this he?