Odysseus Waits for Fair Weather

He wakes on the wet deck, dreaming
a woman beside him, stroking his arm.
He whispers excuses: the milk soured,
my dog betrayed me, gods kept calling

my secret name. The sun succeeds
at rising: splash of pink on inky clouds.
Beating his fingers against the mast,
Odysseus watches lines of dark birds

diving through scum on the water.
The Sirens taught him the tune
in his head, sang to him from the inside
out, riding blood to his skin. His wife

must have stiffened, coarsened,
her long body knotted and crabbed,
but he’s failed at forgetting her. Sirens
stand naked on rocks in the surf.

He built a bed in the arms of a tree.
Penelope waits there. Foul winds drive him,
thrashing waves the color of foxgloves,
shadows of ships, his own dead men.

Moths

Stupid at dying, they let me crush them
          in my fingers.
                              Their skill
          is multiplication.
                                More
flutter up from somewhere
          among my untrustworthy objects—
                    grandmother’s lumpy quilt,
    a cloud of flour in an opened bag.

          Why is God profligate?
I’m tired of stepping to mirrors,
          a woman who tilts
                    her head upward,
          almost smiling,
touching her dangling earrings
          and curled hair. I’m a flotilla
of skirts and scarves,
          wrists and ringed fingers,
                    a showboat, a circus,
          a blind wall of lights.

Is anyone in this neighborhood praying?
          Anyone up all night waiting?
Anyone catching moths
                    in her fingers, smearing
          their darkness
                    onto her hands?