The flat sound of voices on the wine-dark sea

Why did Kirke urge Odysseus
to listen to the Seirenes' song?
Or why did Homer
permit the story to go that way?

Why delay that one man so,
ten years and more out from home?
Anyone could have told the story
of the women's eerie music.

Did the two of them conspire-
author and beloved character-
to teach him a lesson,
to decimate his prideful heart?

Did she want him to hear
the empty longing she knew?
Did Homer decide
there must always be someone
who recorded the events,
in a world full of such wonders,
as women who claim your heart
with just a few verses?

We could have got Oddysseus
home that much sooner
and we could hear the same thing
poured from Penelope's lips--
but such a song
might have been so fierce
as to burn right through him

And we only had so much wax
to stuff in our ears.