Epsilon

African American Review, Summer, 2004

epsilon

   perhaps my time of freedom and reverie is up: for last night i had a
   dream which was more like a vision: odysseus embraced me the way he
   did before going to war; i was tense, my heart constricted, then the
   release of distillation, and wet thighs relaxing

   but i can't just deliver myself like that: i can't just let myself
   go: with a crafty man like odysseus, how can one be his bride
   without acquiring a few of his articles of trade, without subjecting
   him too to tests? now is my turn:

   there is the scar, of course, but a lady cannot ask any passing
   stranger to show her his thigh scar in public; telemachos needs a
   father, but he cannot satisfy his hunger by foisting his father
   figure on me for a husband

   eurykleia the old maid knows me too well; when she says: "your heart
   was always mistrustful," she should have addressed odysseus: for the
   truth holds for us both; if it is he, then let the dappled fawn
   ensnare him by the olive root

   the gods are witness, i have tried to be true to my name till last;
   if this ragged beggar-murderer passes this test, then vagabond
   though he is, i am duty-bound to take him to bed and call him
   odysseus back from troy:

   "honored guest, let your bed be made outside the well-fashioned
   chamber, that very bed that you built, let it be put outside for
   you ..." "goddamn woman! what have you said just now? my bed, my
   solid bed

   built on a living olive bole, with its deep living root? who has
   moved my bed?" it is he, the child, he remembers the toy chamber he
   built around the olive bole which he crafted into a bed on which we
   are to continue our game

   does boredom now begin?