A poem for David Beckham, by Carol Ann Duffy

Achilles (for David Beckham) Myth's river – where his mother dipped him, fished him, a slippery golden boy – flowed on, his name on its lips. Without him, it was prophesised, they would not take Troy. Women hid him, concealed him in girls' sarongs; days of sweetmeats, spices, silver songs . . . but when Odysseus came, with an athlete's build, a sword and a shield, he followed him to the battlefield, the crowd's roar, and it was sport, not war, his charmed foot on the ball . . . but then his heel, his heel, his heel . . . This poem was first published in the Daily Mirror