Odysseus
He went in the new-painted ships. All his good food quickly left, rolled in the stomach of those endless dips.
Then there were orchards where they spent short evenings after fighting, hacked fruiting branches for the meat they burnt.
With all the apples gone, they also lacked cattle and water; for the spring had dried. It was the wildest plan he backed which broke in the small city; which they burnt. The princes took the women and the gold. His ship was splitting. Then he learnt waves grow no smaller, reeling home. The girls' damp arms in island beds clutched round his rib-cage like the murderous foam.
So he came back, with no one at his side, stood by the gate, a stranger to his parts. The old dog licked his finger-tips, then died.
He fought with all who lived near her, their hearts ashes from the years of food and beer.
She missed him deeply. Yet she kept her arts.
Sun sucked the finest blueness of the air.
He gripped her waist. The great bed held its marks, tides of their work, long sleep. He went nowhere.
Alison Brackenbury
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