The Second Slaughter
Lucia Perillo

Achilles slays the man who slew his friend, pierces the corpse
 behind the heels and drags it
 behind his chariot（二轮战车） like the cans that trail
 a bride and groom. Then he lays out
 a banquet（宴会） for his men, oxen and goats
 and pigs and sheep; the soldiers eat
 until a greasy moonbeam lights their beards.

The first slaughter is for victory, but the second slaughter is for grief—
 in the morning more animals must be killed
 for burning with the body of the friend. But Achilles finds
 no consolation in the hiss and crackle（裂纹） of their fat;
 not even heaving four stallions on the pyre（火葬用的柴堆） 
 can lift the ballast of his sorrow.

And here I turn my back on the epic hero—the one who slits
 the throats of his friend's dogs,
 killing what the loved one loved
 to reverse the polarity of grief. Let him repent
 by vanishing from my concern
 after he throws the dogs onto the fire.
 The singed fur makes the air too difficult to breathe.

When the oil wells of Persia burned I did not weep
 until I heard about the birds, the long-legged ones especially
 which I imagined to be scarlet, with crests like egrets
 and tails like peacocks, covered in tar
 weighting the feathers they dragged through black shallows
 at the rim of the marsh. But once

I told this to a man who said I was inhuman, for giving animals
 my first lament（哀悼） . So now I guard
 my inhumanity like the jackal
 who appears behind the army base at dusk,
 come there for scraps with his head lowered
 in a posture that looks like appeasement（缓和，平息） 
 though it is not.