The Second Slaughter1
Lucia Perillo
Achilles slays2 the man who slew3 his friend, pierces the corpse4
behind the heels and drags it
behind his chariot（二轮战车） like the cans that trail
a bride and groom5. Then he lays out
a banquet（宴会） for his men, oxen and goats
and pigs and sheep; the soldiers eat
until a greasy6 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 consolation7 in the hiss8 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 epic9 hero—the one who slits10
the throats of his friend's dogs,
killing what the loved one loved
to reverse the polarity of grief. Let him repent11
by vanishing from my concern
after he throws the dogs onto the fire.
The singed12 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 scarlet13, with crests14 like egrets
and tails like peacocks, covered in tar15
weighting the feathers they dragged through black shallows
at the rim16 of the marsh17. But once
I told this to a man who said I was inhuman18, for giving animals
my first lament19（哀悼） . So now I guard
my inhumanity like the jackal
who appears behind the army base at dusk,
come there for scraps20 with his head lowered
in a posture21 that looks like appeasement（缓和，平息）
though it is not.
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