ARIADNE ON NAXOS



In the pale cool of morning 
she reaches to her side, 
finding an absence 
before the sun gains heat; 
direct, successfully he played her, 
her ball of golden thread. 


Alert now, to her feet, 
she spies sails departing; 
the distant fleet. 
Abandoned to wild beasts, 
of anguish, she doesn’t notice 
how wine-gold light caressed 
her royal thigh and breast, 
moving with such purpose 
behind the clouded east. 

Theseus without her 
silently departing on the tide.
Sacred killer
of her monstrous brother. 

Terror grips her 
tight in its fist, 
yet among the groves, 
the grape-heavy vine stirs, 
there is a trembling 
where white sand and
violet sea meet. 


The divine kiss -- 
felt but not seen, 
rapture from the deep self,
ecstasy and apotheosis; 
her blood thrums 
with the twice-born 
wild and odd, 
come the soft padding 
of leopards she enters
her own labyrinth 

of the black sun’s god. 

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