This is a Dream Odysseus Tells No
       

body, bless his heart. He sails a subterrene landscape,
choppy hills & gore-warm flux, own shadow for gnomon,
no compass but a great bear rudely wheeling, grown
son a rift
                & he unhinged, his self-sufficient
wife a border too far.
                                    Within this contingent fluid
topography, the only trails are bladed algal
seaweed—brown, red, yellow-green. He nears the littoral.
Waves push him in.
                                Up to the escarpment: animal
tracks. Trees' limbs blown down. He snatches a stick, scratches
marks the dream has sent. Tells himself they mean
man of tropes & wrenching. Mean Wisdom, maybe,
mean no memory, no gods. His dry mouth starts
to shape them.
                        Not because he ought to.
                                                                Then he wakes.

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Copyright © 2020 Jeanne Larsen All rights reserved
from What Penelope Chooses
Cider Press Review
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission