Z-187: "Homer Doesn't Mention It Was Raining" JFK elegy from Limousine, Midnight Blue:

[close] Z-187
Homer doesn’t mention it was raining when Apollo
struck Patroclus on the shoulder blades and broke
the leather straps that kept his armor on. Euphorbus
ran up in the rain and skewered him between
his spine and his left lung, and the lung broke.
But Patroclus didn’t die until gigantic Hector
waded in with the rain in his face and stuck
a barbed harpoon into Patroclus’ guts. I know
how long it rained, how fast it fell, cold ropes of it
washing the Greek and the Trojans, and Troy,
and a plagued mule floating to the fig tree. Look:
the helmet rolling away, and soldiers desperate
for my empty armor, and behind the rain my face,
my lips still silently repeating something.