fit for the queen’s decapitation.
Daedalus answered, A dais fit
for the hastened death of Helios’s
daughter would demand months of labor.
And it’s dangerous, my lord. Let me suggest
a punishment with impunity:
on Ida’s southern slope there’s a little
cave where prayers cannot echo,
where no priest has poured blood.
Let’s bind the queen to the cave’s belly
and brick its mouth mum forever.
We can do it tonight: her death will escape
her father’s gaze, guiltless justice.
Minos aired his upper teeth.