The Voice of Laodamia to Anticlus

(Helen in the Voices of the Wives of the Greek Soldiers Calling into the Trojan Horse)

Are you not tired of tricks? Can you perceive
what’s true now if you tried? The form? The feel?
The fear? The grinding grumble of the wheel
from underneath? The cries of those who grieve
men you have killed? Or better far to think
it is all just an image. Shapes in clouds
like shadows on a wall, woven like shrouds
or threads of myth, or light-webs in a drink
of sweet, eye-fooling wine. The fog of war!
The mists of time! So many good excuses
to shrug. (Is someone in there? Is he dead?)
Such art! Such artifice! The muddling Muses
made us so well I can’t tell who’s here, or
in death, in Egypt, or my husband’s bed.