Penelope to Her Loom (30 Years Later)

I have in some respects a predisposition
for this marvel and sustenance, the wood looping
within itself.

The blue lute tapestry
above you I wove before he and I married.
Its disintegration precludes it.
The process was
for survival, but
that's a given.

I have in some respects
a predisposition for disregard--forgetting
the politics--the so-called
proposals and prophecies.
(The dynamics of dinner were hard
with the so-called
proposals and prophecies.)

I have in some respects a predisposition
for affirmation (Oh, I do flirt), but

I guarantee there was nothing
on my mind--not him, not them, but
maybe just me and the repetition,
the unravelling of myself--undoing
proposals and prophecies.

I'm glad I had Telemachus.
But, if, in some ordinary
haze, I'd had five or ten kids,
I'd have had no friend as you--
none of the lonesome,
gorgeous rhythm, thud, echo
drugging and weaving
and unravelling me.

I have in some respects a predisposition
for splinters. Blood. Thread. --Against
full fabric oceans with knots
ending the universes we made and unmade.

I remember my hands and fingers
slightly stiff, ducking
in and out of small loose tongues--little oval
threads--the lives of day and night. It was dark.
I could smell the mold between stones.

Destruction never felt so nice.

This was silly--worshiping an absence
--his huge presence thus--but
I was (am) ridiculous. I have a predisposition
to care

and uncare.

I'm just waiting for my hands
to press into your frame, asking for
the spit and sinew in my fingers
to work again.

The angles of my knuckles
are as soft as the smell of wax,
but pushing away
from themselves, me. This arthritis:
I do not understand. I have not
unravelled my hands (How could I?); but they are
not good.

They have in some respects
a predisposition
for betrayal.

-- third place 1991 Virgina Downs award, published in Phoebe, The George Mason University Review (Volume 20, Numbers 3 & 4, Spring/Summer 1991)

Copyright Louise Robertson