Do you think I can’t see what you’re plotting?
Why do you think my son sent you on
this vain search for Odysseus? I whispered
that you were the right man for the errand.
True, Telemachus banished him, fitful
as a storm tossed by enraged Poseidon,
holding the kingdom hostage to hail-stone
rage, bellowing grief for killing that child
the night Troy was sacked, the poor lad trembling
a harmless wooden sword. Without thinking,
Odysseus struck him down: forever cursed.
Yes, Telemachus should not have sent him
away with murderous companions. Still,
he’s my son, and I’d rather him ruling
than you, sly Polynides, who intended
to wed me, then have my boy and me slain.
But I’ve advised my son, if Ithaca
is to avoid the Furies, we must send
search parties for Odysseus, though I’ve
little hope he’s alive. Still, we must placate
our subjects, and the gods who rule this world.
Besides, two can play your game, for who knows
what perils lurk at sea or in cities
you’ll take for fat, helpless capons, but might
harbor monsters, and if you find my husband,
he’s still not a man to be trifled with;
he defeated over one hundred Suitors.
Do you think your few crewmen can stand
against him, who has dealt death all his life?
Maybe that second slaughter will purge him
of the curse flung by the boy he butchered
when Troy and the great house of Priam fell.
Robert Cooperman’s latest collection is STEERAGE (Kelsay Books). forthcoming from Finishing Line Press is the chapbook AUGUST 24, 1957
