The lecturer writes ‘hubris’ on the board
then turns to lean against the podium,
smiling, at ease within his favorite epic.
“We must observe,” he says, “the cleverness
Odysseus deploys: the alias,
the wine, the sharpened stake, the flock by which
he ‘fleeces’ Polyphemus”—laughter from
the class—“and how it is all undercut
by hubris when he taunts with his real name.
This is more dangerous than any monster,
the blasphemy that shadows his great feats,
the hero’s dialectic, we might say.”
He pauses as the students take their notes.

The sophomore by the window in the back
shifts in his seat and frowns but will not raise
his hand. He doubts his teacher’s tempted death
or even seen it tempted off the page.
He thinks about the chain-link fence they climbed
to reach lake cliffs that had already claimed
a life five years before, a death that raised
the fence. The warning signs did not give pause
but cliff crags and the swamp green poker face
of inlet sheen repelled them from the edge.
Fear shiver-twisted in their guts, their throats.
Coors Light was not enough to lubricate—
except for one magnetically compelled
to sprint from twelve yards back and soar into
abyssal sky dark with impending storm.
The seconds took on shape, liquid tableau
in which he arced out over limestone juts
to reach the hole his drunken uncle claimed
was plenty deep enough when he had leapt,
a javelin hurled in desperation at
an armor chink, a reckless arrow launched.
The rest of them, a cursing chorus, climbed
the fence again and tumbled down the trail
to where he shook and stared across the lake,
still dripping, goosebumped, pulsing from the plunge.
He laughed to cover up his clicking teeth.
“Who—who’s the man?” he croaked at them.
                                                     Hubris,
but then again he nearly died down in
that place. Makes sense he shouted out his name.