Deadalus

All girls here dream of leaping bulls.

What calls them?

Is it the brief spin they crave, drunk?
The game of landing in the holy spot?
Or is it the hot scent of muzzle, the flank touched briefly?

I think
I would love most the air.
The flight above the beast that
tosses anger and comes on.
Watch a priestess.
What joy she finds in the collision's rush
as she springs, hand to horn, and swings off its thrust like rope.
She finds her arc,
seizes it,
twists in its song with a windy thew
to light on dusty soles
arms aloft
upright but tottering.

In Athens, we, too, dove.
But from highest cliffs into sea.
It sucked us deep and thrust the air away
with the weight of music.
I learned to ply the weight of three —
my limbs, the air, and the churning
the way these girls would ply the ox,
their airy arcs,
and the pull of the earth.

Now on Iaktos, prisoner, I watch the gulls
and dream of kites.

I will unmake my clever arms
with sea, and wax, and feathers,
into wind
into machines of air.