i found it yesterday
the lost amulet
given to me
by someone
who cared enough
to offer the protection of gods
designed to bring peaceful sleep
it seems the very thing that keeps me
from rest tonight
no slumber comes with the smell of burning hair
and the memory of
helen’s voice screaming
as you pushed her
into troy’s fire
(begging the tyrant not for her life
or the salvation of a kingdom tricked with kisses
but for the book that holds within it
the voice of her child who will never cry)