how Theseus murdered the Minotaur first
to make the king think he’d come to save him;
how Ariadne used red yarn to keep
track of her turnings, retrieved most
of the pebbles, heard her half-brother
roaring pain or rage, and panicked,
re-spooling the yarn as she sped to the entrance;
how the hero carried the king’s head
through corridors he dotted with blood,
wondering why the pebbles disappeared;
how the regicide gnawed the red head white
but starved with indigestible straw in his stomach;
why Phaedra remained in her mother’s tower
throughout the duration of Ariadne’s reign;
how the red-haired queen quieted Crete
peacefully by pledging to the rebels
she’d give up the throne when Theseus returned;
why Crete did well while she wore the crown;
why Cretans wanted to wipe out every
bulwark that Minos had commanded them to build;
why they submerged his mysteries
by calling their culture naturally naïve;
and why voice’s void devised this I?