I come home smelling of someone elses sweat
Crawl into bed next to wife
Knives of guilt
Bleeding the bed.

Maybe I have done heroic things in past lives,
Defended outer galaxies from daemonic risings,
Villages under my protection,
Medicines made and distributed.

But for now I am forty
And I smell of someone else’s sweat
And I am next to my wife
In my bed
In my house

And it doesn’t feel all that heroic.