Kalypso Has Questions for Odysseus, by Sue Watling

Odysseus And Calypso, by Frank Buchser (Switzerland) 1872

Kalypso Has Questions for Odysseus 

Tell me, Odysseus, what will you do on your island? Mend nets? Stitch sails? Tell the wives of your men how you fucked your way home while their children were hungry?  What will you do, when the bones of Ithaka whisper my name? Know this, lord king, the tongue of my tide will reach you. You’ll have to stop swimming to silence it, stuff up its throat so the waves can’t speak, or breathe my name in your lungs.

Tell me, Odysseus, what will you think in your olive bed, its roots through the floor and arms out-stretched like vines? What will you say when she comes to you, with her broken nails and thin crone breasts? Will there be enough left?  Or will you make space for me? An itty bit of space, for me to slip in with a click of my braids, and the breath of my dress, falling, falling, fallen, down to the floor.

Sue Watling

​Sue Watling is a poet and writer living north of the River Humber in the UK, where she has an allotment and keeps bees. Sue has had work accepted by The Adriatic, Seaborne Magazine, Tide Rises, Amethyst Review, DawnTreader, Saravasti, Spelt Magazine Advent Calendar, Green Ink Poetry, ASP Literary Journal, Dream Catcher, the High Wolds Poetry Festival and There Is No Planet B, Stafford Green Arts Festival Poetry Anthology, while also contributing to the Women of Words and Away with Words open mic events.