From the insignias festooning their sails
I see this fleet is Polynides’.
He hid rather than sail with me to Troy.
But he’s been sent to search if I’m alive
after Telemachus had banished me:
a monster to all unlucky enough
to come across me in my drunken rages,
haunted by the child I hurled to Hades
when, after ten long years, we leveled Troy.
Penelope likely sent Polynides
after me, hoping, if I’m still alive
I’d slay him, and rid her of a suitor
unwelcome as Poseidon’s earthshaking.
He’s brought too many mariners to fight,
so I’ll have to persuade him I’ve less desire
to return “home” than I would to Hades,
and hear Agamemnon whine forever
about how ill-used he was by his wife
and her lover, when he started our troubles
in the first place, sacrificing his daughter
to ensure our fleet a swift wind to Troy.
I’m content with Axia and Miletes.
They healed my soul, so troubled over killing
that boy when I leapt from the Wooden Horse,
I’d have killed myself without their mercy.
Penelope? We were once a matched team,
wisely ruling Ithaca together,
but now, I wish only to be a farmer,
to teach Miletes to be a good man.
I’ve shooed him and his mother off to hide,
and cached anything that belonged to them.
Now, I await Polynides, with a face
as innocent as Herakles in his crib
right before the babe strangled two serpents.
