Penelope’s Tests

Something battered returned.

Gray streaks bruised his beard.

His back hunched by war and travel.

Surely no threat to your slovenly suitors,

men who ate, drank, slept about your court

as if they already owned it, owned you.

Your new test to your suitors – string

your husband’s bow, requiring less force,

more cleverness, finesse.  They failed.

When he strung his own bow, you slept,

dreamt he would shoot twelve arrows

then kill the interlopers, and he did.

Still, you did not recognize your husband.

You requested his bed be moved, a test.

His eyes grew so wide they reflected—

Impossible!  he said, described your bed

that he built with his own hands, designed

with a living olive tree as a bedpost.

You wept in relief at the end of lies,

your husband’s warm embrace, a bigger prize,

you saw yourself loved in his eyes.

Don’t think of the women, the sorceress,

who laughed at his wit, loved his wisdom,

even your cousin Helen, Greatest Beauty.

But great beauty and war is for the young,

and now neither of you are young, he said.

Only wisdom and wit grow with age.

What of love? you asked.  He kissed behind your ear.

He said, Love grows if grounded by an olive tree

of peace and wisdom.  He kissed your fingers,

those fingers that deftly wove a shroud, first test,

later by moonlight, undoing the day's work,

buying years through patience until

true hands tended your old love again.

Emily Jiang