Calypso Keeps What She Finds by Sonia Greenfield

His eyes were always tearful; he wept sweet life away, in longing to go back home, 

…………………..since she no longer pleased him. 

…………………..…………………..—Book 5, The Odyssey, translated by Emily Wilson

Imagine a man washing up

on your land like driftwood

and him worn by waves 

to the very shape you crave.

Imagine being able to shrug 

off the mantle of time as if

it were a loose-woven 

cloak of wool, but saying 

no; saying you’d rather go. 

Yes, I kept what I found,

and he kept me always 

undressed in a cave 

that stored in every crevice 

the sound of surf. I kept him 

in wine and cypress smoke, 

kept him clipped nearly wingless 

on an isle of birds. What of it? 

Let me tell you something 

of wetness, my land slick in even 

its sacred spaces, and also what 

fickle means. He fucked me good 

for seven years until nostalgia 

sparkled like something new again.

Let him shove off from shore

and be tossed toward home. 

I have no more patience 

for a man fooled into mistaking 

each morning’s horizon line 

for something novel, no patience 

for a man hot on the heels 

of Helios, happy to chase 

each day to its close. 

Sonia Greenfield is the author of two full-length collections of poetry, Letdown (White Pine Press, 2020) and Boy with a Halo at the Farmer’s Market (Codhill Poetry Prize, 2015). Her chapbook, American Parable, won the 2017 Autumn House Press chapbook prize. Her poetry and prose have appeared in the 2018 and 2010 Best American Poetry, PANK, Washington Post, Willow Springs, diode, and elsewhere. She lives with her family in Minneapolis where she teaches at Normandale College, edits the Rise Up Review, and advocates for both neurodiversity and the decentering of the cis/het white hegemony. More at soniagreenfield.com.

27 September 2021