as ariadne

by Matthew Stokdyk

you found me breasts bared,
sand wearing away marble toes, glass by the sun;
grapes would have ripened, dark
against the sea.

and you were speckled,
hollow points and round in leopard pelt.
how absurd, I thought, a pinecone on a stick.
how drunk you must’ve been to fashion such a wand.

but wants of gods are not my concern
as you unlaced me that night,
a spool untwisting in labyrinthine blackness,
the baying of my poor brother locked in the basement
in my head as soon my mouth
made cries fit and ecstatic
as a horn tearing through an athenian youth.

what sparrow plucks at our crowns,
what starlings roost and ravens crow?
the amaretto fires coruscating in your eyes,
burning like a swallow of your blood.

and really I miss theseus dearly—
for who could love a god
when a brute had stolen their heart?