Penelope's Shield
       

Laughing Boy returns and the dog drops dead.
Odysseus, did you think I wouldn't know?
Under this shroud
I've borne more absences than yours.
So what, if summer shared our golden bed?
Every winter wears the same disguise.

Growth and loss
loom larger with me, now—
urging weaves both ways,
casting my work in the sun's or fire's light—
knit with disciplined undoing.

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Copyright © 2013 Frank Osen All rights reserved
from Virtue, Big as Sin
Able Muse Press
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission