Christopher Bock

On Absence

I. In Ithaca

His ship will sail in the morning.

"In a dream I saw the blood of sunset,
I saw men hoisted up on golden spears.
I will never know love again like I know
now, right now, today, the bruised second hand
ticking away toward the limp of dawn"

This Penelope spoke to Odysseus,
as they lay in their marriage bed
wrapped in the afterglow,
exhausted from the mounting friction.

II. Bound for Troy

I will never know love again like I know now.
By the third day her voice was water vapor.
The lull of the waves was not torment, nor
a consolation, instead a call to arms, a duty.

Evening separated Odysseus.
Alone in bed he thought of the time
He brought his son to the woods,
And how they stalked his first gazelle,
on tip toes, one with the leaves
and lie stealth until the moment
when that bow was drawn
and the bronze arrows
tore flesh.

Later, the meat was prepared
with a garlic and rosemary rub,
Slabs of spring goat's cheese,
Bowls brimming with calamata olives,

All bellies were stuffed with food,
All gullets dammed with wine.