Kleos, Aidos, Nostos, & Penthos

I.

Patroclus met Achilles in modern dance class in ill-fitted sweatpants, their forespoken oracles plaguing the plausibilities, the woulda-couldas, & their sickening thoughts left the subjunctive, refracted on mirrors like light.

II.

Quicker than anything, he was blowing him in a blue minivan parked in an arboretum, Patroclus’s brow sweating into Achilles’s pubes, breathing heavy through the crevices of their war helmets, the sweet crotch smell of fifty ships. & later, with Ach’s sword in Pat’s hands, he could feel his heartbeat, felt for the first time like he could fight or conquer anything, seize the country he once thought sinking like a body on taut sheets.

III.

Then it was the tenderness of text messages, & the way they sometimes held hands at parties & other times avoided eye contact in the King’s Hall.

IV.

Skip ahead 7 books. 29 little fights, 1 big. 5 picnics, 40 bottles of sauvignon blanc, 24 friends introduced, & 28 nice salads. 11 angry gods, 13 storms, 2 suits of armor, 2 semesters, 1 road trip, 1 broken mast, 4 books borrowed, 3 irreparable wounds. 66 cups of coffee, 76 staggering breaths & 9 times someone came & made a dishonest