Five Poems

Postscript

They say Odysseus in later life
Would get Penelope to tie him down
And sing, as if she weren't his aging wife,

The sort of songs in which a man can drown.
To her, his longing was a gutting-knife,
And when she lifted up her woven gown,

It wasn't for him at all, and when she shuddered,
She was remembering the suitors he had slaughtered.


Drive

Headlights brush
Aside the night
As the painted
Flashes of white
By which I steer
Rush beneath me,
...