You, who waited in Ithaca

patiently weaving a burial shroud

for your father-in-law

fending off lovers

while your smooth-talking husband 

was sleeping his way across the seas.

 

You must have wanted a lover

of your own

maybe someone to amuse your son,

show him how to be a man.

Your journey spun upon a wheel,

this weaving

pulling together scraps of wool,

patching each day, making

a thing of beauty

and undoing it, only

to sew it again.

 

And this is where we stand:

in the doing and the undoing

Monk-like with sand,

setting the supper table

like a mandala,

each still life

not waiting for anything

in particular,

saying yes.

Original publication: Tampa Review, 55/56