Bereft

(After Ulysses, by Alfred Lord Tennyson)

I. [Shock] I never finished the burial shroud. Sill it sits – testament to his return – where Melantho exposed my artifice. See how skillfully woven and how fine the work? With what care I did and undid the Pattern? I cannot bear another.

II. [Denial] “Weft Face” they called me behind my back – as no true suitor would – feeling clever in their slander, while they sought my hand. You’ll show them, I thought each time raw fingers picked out the cursed twine. And by Zeus you did! I laughed in my heart as you slaughtered all, blood repaying me my wait twenty times over.                    No one can shake the olive tree of memory, our virgin oil pressed in the oaths of youth. I’m Penelope, and I kept the hearth. And I’ll keep it still.

III. [Anger] “Aged wife?” Did the world ever know such conceit? Homophrosyne? Had you known me you could not have left again, faithful yet to the home you left “to seek to find.” The western baths, the siren song, they called us both. Did you not think that I could hear them sing?                    “How dull to pause.” These last words, of all words, said to me in careless candor evinced the truth I could no more ignore: I am your equal. You were never mine.

IV. [Bargaining] Bitter taste under the tongue, behind the teeth, upon the lips. It rises, twists, breaks, burns in the throat, overruns me, overflows. I paraded down the stares for you, stirred the plot, gave you the hunt. And still to lose it all? I beg, Athena, pull – fray! – the strings of Fate and grant a farewell parting. And knowing thread, I will not ask for more.

V. [Depression] Not alone a partner lost, nor simply gone a mem’ry, but the fiber of the warp has slipped its tension on the beam. To what avail my waiting now? To what end my fidelity? The preservation of our home? With each element recast, not just the future broken, but the past.

VI. [Acceptance] I am become a name – forever to be known as your wife. Though it were vile to you, it was not always so to me.                                                          In our son Telemachus my better hopes remain. And not in him only; I know my grain, mettle cold forged of pressure and time insistent. That which I am, I am.