Art and poetry on page and stage
12
Elise Snyder
PENELOPE'S VOYAGES
Weaving, unraveling, cock-teasing
Was this a life for a grown woman?
I left in the morning for the West
a more peaceful sea, a generosity
of family. Grandchildren, flowers.
Then mountains, the thoughts of others
And my own. Roomy in my skull
Rattling like pebbles. Minor league politics
Fighting the good fight better
than squabbling at home
He in the evening headed east
Cloaked in sentimentality, his acute
And recurrent illness
Measles chicken pox pneumonia.
Where are the snows, the women of yesteryear.
Petersburg? Scholars’ honors. What kind of
Flowers wreaths shall they bestow
On you? A three gun salute?
Three bangs from the barge on the river?
Separate voyages, separate returns
I’m off to China in the fall.
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