Desire

by Noah Perrin

How to finger the knobby root 
back to its entering point,
to gather in scattered goats 
from the hill’s rampant clover,
How to drain thirst,
tipping back a cup
of creamy milk at supper. 
Everything that ventures out
must return, thus we cannot 
help but hope or dread: our letters 
read and replied, the early rains
and the late, sea sucking in 
tide, and that tired woman 
weaving and unweaving 
the day in viscous darkness,
the warp and weft of burial threads, 
for a man she isn’t yet grieving.
Homer keeps her in dactylic
hexameter, and she keeps time 
with each woolen strand, 
while meat and sweet wine
are wolfed by suitors 
who think her wandering 
husband, somehow, won’t 
come home.