the bull and join her aboard the canopied
barge, where they’d escape the scalding hours.
She tucked a poem between the oar strokes,
and the verses’ ardor convinced Asterion
that all he wanted was a wedding bed.
Her lips polished his lunging shadoof
as the hull gnawed the Nile’s ripples.
Their marriage appeased the impatient scribes,
and jubilation congested Egypt.
But the white bull knew that it wasn’t right
to outstay his welcome. A week after
the nuptial feasts had finished, he wrote
a midnight message in moonlit sand:
“By the time your vision traverses my glyphs,
it’ll be too late to bring me back.
I’ll be crossing the freezing crests to Crete,
where I owe Poseidon a sacrifice
he cannot enjoy in Egyptian temples.
Your present’s too perfect: I fear your future:
becoming the king of a country that mistakes you
for a god is curse disguised as an honor.
Don’t allow your luck to leach logic.
Revile boasters. Revere the truth.”
Rather than following the river to the sea,
the white bull decided to walk through the desert.
Though aridity swelled his right fore-hoof,
he loved the sound of the sand winding.
What looked from below like a vulture
turned out to be the bee-goddess,
the man-snatcher, making her way
from the second Thebes to the scepter’s city.
She perched on a dune and preened her setae
and told him he’d die if he didn’t solve
her enigma: What’s the name of the one
who at dawn murders his mother’s husband
at high noon fucks his father’s wife
and at dusk gouges his gorged pupils?
The white bull raised his right fore-hoof.
The riddler tittered, then took off buzzing.
The white bull followed her flight through the delta
until he walked the waves safely.
Marriage burnished Berenib’s reign,
and Egyptian merchants jammed Poseidon
with cunning wares and copious grain.
Cretan ovens craved the latter.
Minos convened massive crowds
to hear him tell how he conquered
the decrepit Greeks. The crowds would grate
their soles on the gravel, resuscitating
latent blisters from the last parade.
Not even harvest hindered his rallies:
Minos reckoned the reapers could wait
to cut barley and bundle sheaves.
At first his antics only affected
the poorest people, since plunder still plumped
his concubines and bodyguards.
But once his Megaran gold gave way
to the Cretan silver encrusting the coffers,
the word economy cost him some sleep.
In his rallies, Minos harangued Egyptian
merchants, but they didn’t reduce their prices,
and he dared not impound their diligent ships.
The Greek cities received his demands
for monthly tribute, but his messengers confessed
that their bloated king couldn’t survive
another war and wouldn’t allow
his most loyal man to take
his armada to Greece while he remained in Knossos:
conceding his weakness would surely lead
to usurpation and a painful death.
His feet went numb—and not from marching.
Rainclouds snubbed the snail-headed island
and drought glazed neglected furrows
and the word famine fattened his angst.
He must’ve done something to upset a god,
but which was the problem. He wasn’t renowned
for piety. Hupakoë recalled
the year he refused to yield his finest
bull to Poseidon, but sacrificed
the second best on the sandy altar.
But that was before I finished slicing
the heifer’s throat, and we heard the blood
sizzle on the Graces’ sacred tiles
without the flutes’ interference—
the sweat swelling the salt in our eyes.
Androgeus was dead. If Poseidon was still sore,
why didn’t he douse my armada?
But we avenged my son and survived the crossing.
Hupakoë proposed a motive
for the god’s postponing his punishment:
A great ruler must get his revenge
quickly, but gods can quench their rage
in little sips at long intervals.
Perhaps Poseidon hopes you’ll atone.