Loom by Mary Romero

I first read Mary Romero’s poetry years ago in a workshop and have been waiting for a book to come out by her. It was inevitable that one would. Loom does not disappoint. What Romero excels at is tone. Her work feels lush, gorgeous, and paced. They are poems you step into. Her writing then and now reminds me of the best of Rilke’s Duino Elegies.

Loom delivers us into the story of Penelope, Odysseus’ wife. This Penelope lives in the rich world of mythology, but Romero is able to tease out what we can relate to as modern readers. She’s able to make Penelope real and relevant and timeless. This Penelope is concerned with raising her young son alone, weary of the work of keeping a home, missing her partner. We see her. We see us. Buy here.

From “Penelope at Home”

Each time you leave, an eternity sails by.

Our son bobs up, plump-legged, and plummets forwards,

rummaging in every bin of trash, the imp.

Suddenly running, so swiftly he gains Olympian legs,

each morning vaulting our of bed, hungry—always

hungry. So many meals to mark the frenzy of days. . .

From “The Bedroom Built Around a Tree”

My hands, with nothing else to touch, linger

along the grains of our bed frame, as firm

and smooth to stroke as muscle cloaked in skin.

Immovable. You carved it from a trunk of olive.

Its roots, like a constellation of stars,

still stretch beneath it, gripping the ground,

as if we two were lifted by a net of light

each night, lying above a burning meteor—

a relic of petrified, once-dripping sap. . .

From “The Brightness”

I thought that you, and your return, would answer

everything: all disappointment, expectation.

Unreal, of course. You would always prove

both less than enough and far too much,

like a summer’s day when the mist evaporates.

The sun: first cloaked, then all at once abrasive,

overbearing. . .