Swan and Minotaur

December, Despite Myself

I like living seven snowy blocks down

the street from you, your sinewy animal

body and Erl King hair; though I never

pretend you haven't hidden elsewhere

your fickle minstrel heart. So it goes

with mirrored names, unfounded effigy, all

arbitrary baubles that bind us together

with preposterous frailty. Writhing,

like a wolf finding itself suddenly fawn, I

at night imagine using my tongue like claws

or sharp teeth to tear out those hushed

truths that would doom us. I hunger

to force our strange circumstance into familiar

chaos, emptying this damned heart I bled

once to bury and blister perfectly black,

yet, as of late, near and threatening

to be roused, even now breaking recklessly

through Moira, cruel and savagely reborn.