"A long while she sat in silence...numbing wonder
filled her heart as her eyes explored his face."

(The Odyssey, Book 23, translated by Robert Fagles)

Plans were mislaid. Poor excuses
like the one
where he said how sorry
he was for getting lost,

disoriented
tracing last night's steps
half
remembered in the fog

of drunkenness and now, a hangover
as well as a cut
on his head
when he fell over a stone that was nowhere

near her feet.
Unlike Penelope she has no face
to explore.
As for wonder,

her sigh
is too loud to be silence
and far too quiet
to be defiance.