Helen When Asked

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Here was an island and there was another,
men moving between them with outlines of a plan,
the Greeks playing board games inside their camps.
Orange-haired Achilles, whose armour fit the body
of his lover exactly, hacked at men and the river.
I could never guess what time it was. I tolerated music,
and understood sex more than I felt it.
Touching men’s chests over their grey shirts
I found them as obvious and solitary as the islands.
With women, I followed whatever roads I could mark
on small maps of feeling. Sex was above all
a story. I was irritable, not depressed.
At least there was violence. Even-tempered Hector,
chased three times around his city
then pierced through the neck like a fox. Achilles
tied his massive body to a chariot. Why would that
have been too far? I loved them all,
but weren’t we making choices? Weren’t the gods
just possibilities, the untapped potential energy
stored in the joints and skulls of men?
My face was not the most beautiful
but any person was entitled to think it was
and what terrifying pleasure in that. I couldn’t explain
what drew me out of my home any more than what
bored me about my new residence, except to say
somebody out there always wanted me more.

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Winner of The London Magazine Poetry Prize 2026

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Nina Reljić is a writer from London. She has a Poetry MFA from Columbia University, and her work has been published in The White Review, The London Magazine, Poetry Ireland, Image, New Ohio Review, Epiphany and elsewhere. She was the runner-up for The White Review Poet’s Prize and a finalist for the New Ohio Review Poetry Prize. She lives in New York City.

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