that’s the law. It cost him ten drachmas.
Someone asked him how he wanted to be buried,
and his face lit up with mischief.
“Any way you like!
if you can catch me!
if I don’t slip through your fingers!”
He did slip through our fingers —
That was how I felt. The poison was quick.
After he drank it,
he circled the room — that’s what the jailer told him to do.
I backed up close to the wall —
His friends walked with him,
around and around;
he circumnavigated the room.
I thought our eyes met once
but his were glazed.
I knew he was in pain,
private,
all-absorbing.
Hemlock kills you from the bottom up,
We watched as his gait became stiff.
He no longer strode, but stumped;
he was still asking questions as he lurched round the room.
The jailer told him to lie down.
He lay in bed; his breathing was labored;
he stiffened and seemed to quiver.
The hemlock mounted to his chest,
and he yanked the cloak over his head.
Just before he died, he made a great effort,
and dragged back the cloak,
he said something, loud but garbled.
I caught the word “Asklepios!”
the god of healing —
that’s all I heard.
That’s the last thing he said.
He covered his face again,
his breath coming in gasps and rattles. We held still,
silent,
except for weeping Apollodorus. We waited
and waited
and waited
long past the last breath.
His friend Krito uncovered his face;
his eyes were fixed,
his head thrown back, teeth bared.
Krito closed his mouth and shut his eyes.
I took to my heels
and plunged out into the dark.
1.
The moon was up. I walked the streets gasping
blinking
breath whistling
in and out. I would honor Sokrates;
no slavish tear would fall —
but that bird in my throat
was beating its wings
thrashing
trying to force itself out. I headed
nowhere
turning corners at random. I heard carousing —
the low laughter of shameless women,
drunken aristocrats:
rich men guzzling wine
smacking their lips over their precious ideas,
while the wise man lay dead.
A dog barked. My sandal slipped —
something rotten underfoot.
An owl shrieked: Athena,
keening for Sokrates.
My feet led me homeward
stop
I stood in the courtyard.
Zosima sobbing inside the house:
Why should she care about Sokrates?
He was my friend.
Phaistus shouting: “It’s not what I want!
By all the gods, Zosima,
I’ve no wish to part with the boy! I’ll never find another like him.
But we can’t afford him, and we can’t go on like this.
I can’t risk my freedom.
Every day I go on without a protector, we’re in danger.
Someone could find out. We have to leave — ”
“Then take him with us! He’s our son!”
“No. He’s not.
I wish he were. Listen —
Simon’s promised:
If I sell him Pyrrhos, he’ll take them both;
he’ll take Kranaos off our hands.
The old man will be cared for;
does that mean nothing to you?
After a lifetime of toil, he’ll die in a bed
and have a proper burial.
Pyrrhos will learn to make shoes. That’s not a tragedy.
People need shoes, and the work’s not hard —
it’s easier than making pots.”
“What has that to do with anything?
Phaistus, you’re not selling our son!
We can sell the donkey.”
“By all the gods, woman! we need the donkey!
We need a beast of burden. You’re close to your time.
I don’t know how long we’ll be on the road,
or how I’ll find work.
I won’t have a kiln or a shop —
I’ll have to work on a farm —
the donkey will be a big help.”
I’d heard enough. I turned
and fled the courtyard
away from the house
anywhere. I couldn’t escape from my thoughts.
Phaistus was selling me to Simon the cobbler,
along with Kranaos.
They’d be leaving the city:
Phaistus and Zosima,
and Phoibe, who was my friend
and worth more than I was.
I ran
zigzagged around houses
until I couldn’t run,
I clamped my hands to my knees
and gulped air. My throat was dry.
I’d come to a dead end,
a narrow space between ugly houses.
I had nowhere to go but home.
I pivoted. Followed my feet,
found my way back;
the courtyard was silent, the argument over.
Zosima must have given in.
I went in the shed. I wanted to sleep.
To crouch in a dark corner
and never wake up.
Clop. A hoof on the hard clay floor;
the floor I’d shoveled and packed down: Phoibe sidled over
sniffing my hands, hoping for a treat,
wanting a scratch along her spine. Through the dimness I saw
her long-lashed eyes
dark as violets,
the pale soft fur around her muzzle.
she nickered: a question.
My mouth twisted and I wept. The tears washed down
my cheeks my neck
Phoibe. Her little hinny.
Phaistus, Zosima,
Sokrates.
Everyone I cared for,
everything: the moist clay breathing between my hands
the toys I’d learned to make
lost. gone.
the things I’d learned: worthless.
every scraping of joy or hope
would be taken away
and always would.
I dropped down in the straw
choked and sobbed and blubbered;
what was the use
of trying not to be slavish? I was a slave.
I would always be a slave.
A hand on my arm. A shock of pain —
A spark in the darkness. Sparks
like rubbing wool on a cold day —
my hair on end
I looked —
and you were there, Melisto, kneeling beside me: solid and clear as amber. I saw you: the freckles on your cheeks, the creases in your dress: jagged lines like brushstrokes of darkest ink. I saw the scars on your arm, fernlike and branching.
I snarled like a dog: “Who are you?
Why do you follow me?
What are you doing here?”
Your eyes widened. You were sitting cross-legged, like a boy: you flipped up one knee and swung your leg sideways, nesting your ankles together. You spoke commandingly, as if you were a god:
“I’ve worked it out —
how to set you free! It’s like a triple knot.
We’ll untie it together.
The first knot’s worked loose by itself. You can see me;
you spoke to me!
Now there are two knots left.
“When I lived, I was Melisto, daughter of Arkadios.
My father’s a citizen. He’ll serve as your master’s protector:
Then Phaistus won’t have to lose the shop or leave the city.
You won’t be sold
“ — but we need to bargain for your freedom,
and you’ll have to convince my father, so
“ — we’ll go to Brauron, to the Sanctuary of Artemis.
Together. You have to come, because I can’t carry things.
Your mother sent me;
your mother, Thratta;
she was my nurse.
She loved you more than all the world.
I’m meant to set you free.”
I caught only
