from "Athena in Death" from The Lost Books of the Odyssey by Zachary Mason (it's not poetry, but it's beautiful--this passage and the book) [Athena to Odysseus, upon his death:] The underworld was not for him, not even its Elysium, she said. For Odysseus, her best beloved among mortals, her favorite since he was born, she would, as his final reward, make for him whatever afterlife he wanted. Odysseus thought a little while . . . and asked to be young again, or at least not old, and to spend eternity making his way from a war indefinitely far in the past to an island indefinitely far in the future. He would remember that the war had been painful, but that he had won it. The details of the island would be vague . . . but he would be certain that it represented the consummation of every desire. He did not want to know that he was a ghost. Let trials and cruel kings and monsters come, he said, and let them all be overcome at the last second. Above all, he said, stay with me this time. She would, she said, and she had. -- p2: defenestrate --

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