PENELOPE

Gray old spinners,

Weaving with the crafty fibers of your souls;

Nothing was given you but those impalpable threads.

Yet you have bound the race,

Stranglers,

With your silver spun mysteries.

All the cruel,

All the mad,

The foolish,

And the beautiful, too:

It all belongs to you

Since the first time

That you began to drop the filmy threads

When the world was half asleep.

Sometimes you are young girls;

Sometimes there are roses in your hair.

But I know you —

Sitting back there in the hollow shadows of your wombs.

The crafty fibers of your souls

Are woven in and out

With the fibers of life.