When Paris touched your hand, did your
ships become comets that sliced the
heavens? Troy is a gasp in the
groan of deep space; no lustre
compares to the daughter of Zeus.
No virtue could be held at the
sight of your face. In your fleet,
did the image make you shudder
of Theseus’ dull grimace?
If you had known your visage would
shed blood, would you have cut it at
its stem; burnt it if you could?
You never asked to seduce
from child; you never asked that
men should fight that they might put
you in the sky, starry mascot.
You never asked to be a prize,
but so it goes. You never asked
for lovers to cage you; for your
legend to be tied to some mast.
Perhaps in our time, you would have
launched your thousand ships into the
sky, and made your own starry path;
head held high, cosmic intruder.
Banished away Helen of Troy
and become of Andromeda,
Whirlpool, Condor, Antennae –
Poetry by Emma Wilson-Kanamori
Image by Adam Strong
Emma’s poetry has appeared on Half Hour to Kill, and her short fiction in literary magazines Ginosko Literary Journal and The Gravity of the Thing. Though she grew up in Japan as a mix of writer, artist, and dancer, she has moved to Scotland and has settled down fully as a
scribbler, both of words and of images.
Backwards Trajectory 