Born without horns:

It was fortunate for the Mother —

picture her,

sweat drips off Her pale forehead,

skims between swollen breasts,

hands clench wet sheets,

mirror the spasms and the agony

as they wrench linen.

The handmaidens

stand around, their glances when

Her eyes closed

tell of concern for Her plight

and then, of course,

that moment when the overly large head

finally appears, between quivering thighs,

then worse, the strange legs, bowed,

two cloven feet, absent toes.

Gasps

from the novices, the matrons steely-eyed,

firm in their care,

their whispers will not begin

until they are safe in their own rooms —

with all that in mind, let us admit

it was fortunate for the birthing Mother,

in this case also the Queen, though,

with further consideration,

in the end, it was not;

a King cannot forgive

His Queen Her carless tryst, instead of matters of State

His mind wanders — was it

in the cow-shed, dung and straw for a bed,

behind the barn, and if so who might have seen,

in the open field, perhaps —

with a God Bull.

No matter how hard

the full moon pressed down upon the earth,

spilling white light

across the forms as they writhed,

the bull-god eventually spilling also, the King

is concerned with who did see;

but that is after

the images that haunt him at night,

the Bull-god’s palm (or would that be hoof?)

pressed between Her spread thighs,

bull-god’s blunt fingers

insistent, stirring desire;

afterwards

did she drink hot tea,

blown first with twin lips (that still

slightly quivered with the after-ripples of desire),

then carefully sipped

in a summer stung by the scorpion sun,

so everyone is hot, bothered and itchy

with desire.

The King imagines She wiped away Her sweat

with the hand He has numerously held,

and hoped the aftermath

would not be smelt before She bathed

while the bull-god slunk

back to his true god form

and goddess wife —

truly she was fortunate

that Asterion was not born

with his horns fully formed,

the pain, so bad Her howls filled the island,

would have been nought compared

to the agony of two horns

making their way down her canal

and into the light. 

The absence of horns did not help Asterion,

however, for the hooves placed

where the feet should have been

gave away the fact that Midas

was not the sower of that particular seed —

and everyone knew

the bull was a form

favoured by gods

since gods immemorial.

The Mother, still bruised and torn

by the hard heels of her son

as he kicked his way into sunlight,

was slain outright.

It may even be

that she was glad; granted relief

from the haunting of that night.

Her body ached with the memory

of the Bull’s lasting embrace.

In most tales, then,

the monster is banished to the labyrinth,

there to spend his days

the way the King chose to slay

innocents

and eventually to be slain by heroic Theseus;

but sometimes

I imagine there was no maze,

no underground cave

and no Theseus; instead

I imagine Asterion banished

down the stone moss-drunk stairs

to a moonless, sunless cellar —

where water dripped

in taunting whispers and the slimy stone

drank itself dense with the indifference

of the earth; there to live out his son-of-bull-god days

chained to the wall, his food fed

between his thick lips, and placed

upon his fat tongue by young virgins,

pale-fleshed, stolen from other lands.

The females, to the King, served two purposes.

Their theft made other lands fear

the beast’s Father and the tips

of the girls’ slender fingers, when

they brushed Asterion’s flesh, especially his tongue,

their scent as they drew close,

their breasts

almost forced to touch his hirsute chest

and the fear that formed

in tiny beads of sweat

upon their innocent brows,

tormented Asterion —

his father was,

amongst other things, as considerate

as the gods in his punishment;

recall that Rock and other chained soul

and make your comparison.