MY MOTHER AS PENELOPE

Lemon rinds in the dried brook bed,

fireflies failing to light—

all, like me,

suffer the occasional drought.

Outside my window,

no islands of foliage

block my view to the shore.

No river noises trickle in.

Listen, after years of waiting,

I tire of the myth I’ve become.

If I am not an ocean,

I am nothing.

If I am not a world unto itself,

I need to know it.