Funeral Mask from Mycenae, by Ruth Bavetta

Funeral Mask from Mycenae (Mask of Agamemnon), Peloponnese, Greece, c. 1500s B.C.E.

Funeral Mask from Mycenae                
                          once thought to be that of Agamemnon
                 
There was someone who lived, 
who ate bitter olives, fish
pulled from the Adriatic,
garlic, onions, sesame.
 
And when he died a son
took a sheet of gold,
raised the hammer, beat the shining
metal into the topography of the face--
 
eyebrows in a shallow arch,
broad cheekbones, downturned mouth,
closed eyes—every blow 
driving his father deeper into history.

Ruth Bavetta

Ruth Bavetta is a poet and artist whose poems have appeared in Rattle, Nimrod, American Poetry Review, Tar River Review, North American Review and many other journals and anthologies. Her books are Fugitive Pigments and Flour, Water, Salt (Futurecycle Press), Embers on the Stairs (Moon Tide Press), and No Longer at This Address (Aldrich Press). She has been a Best of the Net and Pushcart Prize nominee.