Rachel Hadas's most recent books are Pandemic Almanac (2022) and Love and Dread (2021). Ghost Guest is forthcoming later this year. She is Professor of English Emerita at Rutgers-Newark, where she taught for many years.
The Thumb of Thetis Grasping him by one little foot to dip him in the mystic river, Thetis (how can she forget?) overlooks this: that where her thumb presses his flesh, he still is dry instead of drenched in deathless wet, hence subject to mortality. When her baby is a