Gods Measure

In Homer, "Gods, though gods, are conspicuous"

"For I knew easily as he went away the form of his feet"

     Lattimore a subject

     the other night with the older poets outside the bar

or by the signature walk, getting there

our feet passing legs in red
named "Artemis" she said

the boy's in love, but she's "taken" her girlfriend's arm
      around her
     hardly / fails to / almost starts a war

but hardly a likely siren, virgin huntress or lunatic lesbian


Or our new landlady, crawling on her knees up one floor
   to our kitchen

her edema swells the odyssey
her claws bared like a harpy's

insomniac, deaf, but tough & eager to please
especially in this heat with the new air-conditioner

sees mine — big feet what size? ten or eleven

blows me down to the basement

to her dead husband's shoes, hardly worn
damp     practically new

I tried them on. "Too small," I lied.

He was a singer.

Can you lie to the gods?