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 man,
that tiny disc of naked skin
will let the fatal arrow in.
This is where the wound will come.
One vulnerable spot is all
it takes. We say “Achilles’ heel.”
His mother Thetis’s anxious clutch,
immortal hand and tender touch,
though less renowned in song and . . .
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