Carla Galdo

Honda Odyssey

To My Alleged Accomplices

“Mortals cannot go forever sleepless…”

                                   –Homer

Perhaps Penelope might be

relieved of her monotony

by one used silver minivan,

complete with gas and key.

She glances quickly in the hall

where all her suitors feast and sprawl

then slips out barefoot, sandals clasped

against her tight-wrapped shawl.

Weaving down highway lanes, past trees

with twisted trunks and silver leaves,

she drives through olives quivering

in an aeolian breeze.

She stops at market stalls, buys bread

and cheese and wine, some colored thread,

then picnics, toasting memories

of the lost man she wed.

She presses coins into the hands

of beachfront beggars, walks the sands

and lets the wild wind tangle up

her curls’ escaping strands.

This strategy might work, she thinks—

just get out of the house, buy drinks,

stare as the surf turns green to red,

breathe as the sun slow-sinks.

She’s got her daytime weaving, sure,

like everyone who must endure

such loneliness, but then, there’s night’s

unraveling allure.

A blackbird sliced across my path today,

its wings adorned with epaulets of red.

It cut down from the sky in such a way

I felt the world was fissured, and it bled

with memories of you. The slightest thing

can do this now, can prick the thinning skin

that holds in all my thoughts—a water ring

from one iced glass, a stranger’s sudden grin—

they all pull me to you, my far-flung friends.

You scribble in the streets and swamps and pews,

you shuffle synonyms, and walk the bends

of canyons scrawling sketches of the views.

You draft, revise, cup suffering, catch light.

You herald mercy’s subtle breaking-through,

band beauty, and then watch it take to flight.

Perhaps we’re fools, or mad, to dare pursue

a life laid down in letters on the page.

We’re told that it’s frivolity, a waste;

to try another hobby to assuage

our boredom, or our unproductive taste

for naming what we see. But we’re in this

together, as companions in a space

where feathers pierce, where pen and paper kiss,

and verse emerges from their inked embrace.

Carla Galdo has written essays and poetry for various groups and publications, including Well-Read Mom, Humanum, Dappled Things, and Modern Age. Carla earned an MTS from the John Paul II Institute for Marriage and Family, and is pursuing an MFA in Creative Writing at the University of St. Thomas-Houston. She lives with her husband and six children in Virginia.