The Blue Ladies

Thomas Kretz

The fresco set four millennia back
roofing the lush bedroom of Pasiphae
in the Cretan village of Knossos
still fresh as the blushing skin
from brushing up against Venus
skyclad and reaching for more.

The lady's wry panache for seduction
pinned her inside the Daedalus image
before James Joyce got a hold on him
and a bull found the eye of the hole,
mirror for love to recognize love,
looking both ways at the same time.

The foot of the bed a painted Minotaur
ready to charge into the darkness,
the head a tapestry woven from the hair
of Ariadne showing the single way
to enter or leave the inner sanctum,
the bones of why she never came out.

Northern breeze carried the fine ash
of Thera's cremation, forcing the Snake
Goddess to burrow down hibernation;
no dirt left to make mire, no surface
mud to cure blindness, and no fertility
to rub shoulders with one-eyed Ladies.

©Copyright Thomas Kretz