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Queen, harsh queen, fighter of men, you are marred
with cracks in your blade, meager blade. No son
of man swung you. More precious than the scarred
dreams of Homer— you have been forgotten
in the earth. Stunted, bronze leaf, you were flung
down on the field, trampled, lost. For how long
have you slept? What did you dream when your young
mistress held you up? Sing to me the songs
that her war priestesses sang about you;
songs that could slice open the south and north
winds. The love that poets have for war’s grief
have not been honored the way that you, who slew
Athens’ king, have. What poppies can bring forth
such blood lust as Andromache’s bronze leaf?



Andromache was an Amazon queen who fought in the Greek myth, The Battle of Attic. Her name means, “Man Fighter.”