any way that’s left him. At my age
I can’t invade his island. Torturing
his corpse is all the sweetness I can wring
out of this sore called life. So Nisos turned
to reexamine Minos, but he learned
rage doesn’t guarantee imagination:
his piecemeal fantasies of mutilation
refused to coalesce. He couldn’t think
with the flies buzzing and the stiff stink.
Having refused his dearest catamite’s
advice, his mind was like a dead god’s rites.