Penelope

Stay at Home Mom

By: Charles Giuliano - Dec 14, 2015

Penelope

Helen
Wife of gruff Menelaus
Slut killer of men
Abducted by Paris
Pretty Trojan prince
Beloved by Aphrodite
Odysseus joined
The thousand ships
Greeks defending
Honor of brother of
King Agamemnon
Fair Penelope
With their son
Telemachus
Tending the hearth
While he partied
Half a world away
Wisest of the Greeks
Called Ulysses
By the Romans
A decade until the horse
That terrible night
Then endless adventures
The Odyssey
Not in a rush
Enjoying epic adventures
His wife holding off
Suitors for assumed widow
Feasting in their palace
Cavorting in his absence
She ever faithful
Women who wait
While men battle
So far away
No news of him
Twenty years on
From Greeks
Long since returned
At night undoing
The day’s tapestry
Its making as excuse
For not mating
Ancient and weathered
Washed up near drowned
Sole survivor
Punished by Poseidon
Blinded his son
Sheep tending Cyclops
Saved by Athena
Not recognized
Scant resemblance of
Sanguine youth who
Sailed so long ago
Joined the contest
Who could string his bow
All tried and failed
How they laughed
When ragged vagrant
Took his turn
Cleaning house with
Hail of deadly arrows
Joined by Telemachus
By then a man
Reclaimed the bed
Of ever faithful
Loved one now past
Child bearing
By the fire
From then on
Telling tales of
Brave Ulysses
Celebrated
In poem and song
While true hero
Unwavering Penelope
Women who
Suffer more
While men are off
At war