13. Telemakhos' Bath.

When the boy-man falls into the hands of women, his
body turns to steam. They massage his cloud muscles
with gold-flecked oil. Under a stream of hot water, he
will take the shape they want, doll-body. He will slip
through their fingers. Mist between trees billows into
female thighs, pelvises, chests, a company of promise
always just beyond his grasp.

14. Penelope's Loom.

Through the strong warp of the past, she shuttles the
woof of the future, and the fabric of the present
tightens into shape. But the present? Laertes' death
is constantly deferred. Constancy is her métier: to
preserve it, she lets the present unravel at her
fingertips, while night breathes over her shoulder and
complicates the pattern.

15. Eurykleia's Recognition.

Who had nursed him, dandled, swaddled, soothed him      as
a baby-- who had sent him off in a clean tunic to hunt
the boar-- who had tended fires and scrubbed      pavements
and counted sacks of grain these four score years, now
startles back on her heels, his hand at her throat. A
man's grip. A known hand. We can call it another name
for tenderness. As the boar's tusk ripping the boy's
thigh can be counted a blessing, a kind of caress. A
ring of oily scum forms at the basin's rim. In
hearthlight, their shadows leap.