The Minotaur dreams:

The Minotaur saw his many-mirrored reflection

in the sweat-beads gathered on the foreheads

of girls who fed him; cried out to his Father  

not knowing if it was to the King Minos

or the god-bull his pleas flew towards.

Each morning the guards reported to Minos

his nightly pleas and the witnessed torment

as they girls drew close and fed him.

They noted his horns bent towards the girls

as if their tips hungered for the touch of flesh.

Each girl attained the moment when she could resist

no longer; liquefied fear, like lava, carried her

onto his horns; the still breathing, bloody body

then dragged to the King’s bed, mute and vacant,

ruined for a second time, sent home in a casket.

The monster was blamed for each maiden’s death,

so the Minotaur’s legend grew, the monster oblivious

of his crimes, unaware his name filled the ears of children;

he remained deep underground, dreamed of light, of air
and the feel of a grass stem chewed between his lips.