as nothing but another noise from the palace;
how the hero hacked off the hybrid’s head
and carried it dripping down corridors
as though it would tell him where the tyrant lurked;
how Phaedra’s sister flung the pebbles
over the walls while her crimson
yarn recorded each corner she turned
till she respooled it, retracing her path;
how the thought occurred to Theseus
that Minos had trapped him in the maze and escaped;
how thirst usurped the desire for revenge
and made him lick muddy puddles;
how hunger brought the hybrid’s brains
through the lipid maze of his lower intestines;
how the sun sapped him, and his sword tumbled
from his grip, and he creeped to the green shade
of granite mossed by imagination,
where he sat through the last of life’s insults;
why Athena instructed the staring bones
to deflect the crows by becoming a statue
and why the void’s voice invented this I?