Escape, by Bill Hollands

Laocoön and his Sons. Marble, copy after an Hellenistic original from ca. 200 BC. Found in the Baths of Trajan, 1506.

Escape 
 
I sit in the darkened theater and watch 
images of naked men on the screen. Is it wrong  
to be turned on by a marble sculpture 
from the Hellenistic period? Do you know 
the story? Laocoön warned the Trojans 
about Greeks bearing gifts (see also 
Trojan Horse) and the gods sent big snakes 
to punish Laocoön and his sons. The professor 
drones on but the message is clear: Sons suffer 
for the sins of their father. I, on the other hand, 
can’t take my eyes off the son on the right. 
He looks at his father and his brother and to me 
his expression is not Help but I’m out. Meanwhile, 
he slyly slips the coiled snake from around 
his ankle as if he’s shedding a wet 
Speedo. I return to my dorm room 
and geek out. Apparently, my guy 
wasn’t even connected to the others 
when they unearthed the sculpture’s fragments. 
Plus, in another version of the story, that son 
escapes the snake’s jaws altogether. And, 
anyway, the whole thing might just be a fraud. 
One theory goes that it’s a forgery by Michelangelo 
who passed it off as an antiquity for cash 
and you know which son he had his eye on. So, 
on the test when the professor asks about the paradox 
of beauty in the midst of suffering 
I write about the liberated son 
and take my B and call it good.

Bill Hollands

Bill Hollands holds degrees from Williams College, Cambridge University, and the University of Michigan. He is a teacher and poet in Seattle, where he lives with his husband and their son. His poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Hawai`i Pacific Review, The Summerset Review, Rattle, 3Elements, PageBoy, and elsewhere.