Penelope, Exasperated

I have given you bread and salt.
You salted the furrows, you salted the wound. 
You wound your way across the Adriatic 
ten years to me, while I, at cross-purposes, 
wily, unraveled this loom, turned into your maybe, 
turn and return and turn again. Made me 
bitter. Made me old. You, what may you gain? 
Kill the suitors, hang the maids? What? What? 
You know the secret of our bed? It suits you that 
I wait. No. This time when you’re gone, when 
the weight of you is gone, I step onto the portico, and 
Goddess, I hold up my hands. You, down at the port 
with all your faithful hands. A sail stands in to harbor. 
This time I’m done. No more understanding woman. 
If you come back, know it, I’ll be gone. Don’t think to moor 
in that same cove again.

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Jane M. Wiseman is a poet who splits her time between very urban Minneapolis and the Sandia Mountains of New Mexico. She enjoys all kinds of poetry and writes in other forms, too. She is an enthusiastic Sunday painter, an avid reader, and loves spending time with family. She holds an undergraduate degree from Duke University, an MA from the University of Illinois-Urbana, and a Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania.