Twila Newey

self-isolation

Penelope’s Time

to move slowly, up and down,
as threads of grass in a strong wind

without destination—bend,
straighten, bend, straighten

warp: : : to hold still in tension.
weft: : : to move through tense—

to have loved, to love, to have lost,
to lose, to have passed, to pass

Is language time passed through a loom
continuously woven & unwoven ? Do not ask

Odysseus for a straight answer
he will give you a hero’s story,

a grand journey of neat threads,
built line by line—a finished tapestry

tied beginning to end
enclosed in an epic sunrise

repeats, repeats, Penelope speaks
little, will show you her hands,

how they have moved, how they move
slowly, up and down, down and up

luemen: : : to be weary in busyness,
this business of doing & undoing.

Her time a whirring apparatus—strands
tightened together, strands falling apart.

Twila Newey was a finalist for the 2019 Coniston Prize at Radar Poetry and won honorable mention in the 2019 JuxtaProse Poetry Contest. Her poems also appear in Summerset Review, Rust & Moth, Whale Road Review, and other journals. She reads for Psaltry & Lyre.