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.