26.4.12

The Bull (revised)


The body that holds me: four walls,
more, ambitiously conceived
like the monster it was created to hold;
corpse to house the bastard of a cursed wife.

Sins of the stepfather ensured a body
large and wrong, born as a vessel
to hold his guilt. Stupid beast,
with horns for gouging and hands
for grasping like the most helpless of babes.

No mother’s milk, only meat hoarding marrow
like gold in loose soil, and to that end,
I crack the bones and explore the bounty:
Paths unnavigable but by a ball of twine,
impossible, lonely halls carrying blood.

I walk between the ribs of my cage,
and await a hero who seeks my taurine head,
my human heart. Do not be cowed, hero—
I am branded brute, but I am less than a man.

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