Raveling

I. Penelope's Lament

Three years’ procrastination undone by one pair of loose lips,

a thousand nights wasted,

my chaste fidelity

squandered by wanton longings,

a trespass of confession

to one who caught her up like Leda to make a Helen of me.

My nights, now empty of unweaving,

are unraveling me.

What do they know of pleasing a woman, these poets, merchants, and farmers? I’ve seen them with my maids, behind the linens in the line.

The sheep and goats have more style and grace, so, for that matter, the swine.

Who among them could touch me where my Odysseus has lingered these twenty long years he’s away?

Aphrodite herself could not love him better than I that day.

We built our world together, and I will burn it, this bed, and tree to the ground

Before another man shares it with me.

A second Troy indeed

II. Melanthe

How long, really, did she think she could go on,

hording the best of our men, obscuring the line

between lies and truth with her daytime

weaving and nighttime raveling? Three years

she kept them from us, crediting her stalling

with intricate patterns, fabrications for the grave.

What is it about these women, these Penelopes,

Ledas, and Helens, that makes men hang their spirits in

rags for a shadow of a glimpse at a chance, when here

I lie, ready? Persephone has blessed

what Athena and Aphrodite overlooked. Dwelling deep, I,

too, have something to offer a suitor.

Intoxicating seed impels me to open my lips

for he who has opened me. Languid, I let him in

on the secret, reveal her posture as she sits unweaving

through the night. After three years' revision,

the shroud should be perfect.