You have accepted the gifts
of salesmen their wire whips
their tubes of lipstick
but bought nothing.

So we have come to this
a house with one room
the sky is a shirt
without buttons
and we put it on
It is enough   it is enough

As I fix breakfast
I notice your hands
their silence   how they cover themselves
when I watch them   their separateness
how they move their lips
I think about the skillet

heating in my hands
how Odysseus was recognized
by no one in his household.

Dennis Braden's first collection of poems, Notes for the Dead and Sleeping, was published by Konglomerati Press. His work has appeared in such publications as Nova, Broken Streets, Epos, and Earthwise and in two anthologies, Windbone: Poetry from Colorado and In the West of Ireland.