To Share; or Not

by Christine Bayeux

If Ovid had known me, I feared
Silently, never assigning a local
Habitation, or a name except through
Faint tapping of keys, that I might
Share a page with fated Ariadne.

Betrothed once, Yes, I muttered while
A silent butterfly fluttered within me,
Crying that she would never fly again,
I ignored her, staring through
Perfect emerald shaped prisms until
I became blinded by their chilly, but
brilliant radiance.

Without any mention of her hands, I
Imagined Ariadne's fingers to be fragile,
Even fantastical, unlike her heart,
beating and biding its time forlorn.
Mine were burnt and bled a blood so
Red that I could never color it with
A Hebrew alphabet.

I had seen four, maybe five moons
swell and sweat and disappear like
Dust. Sweet Ariadne, I knew, had not.
She hadn't the time to heal before
Theseus rescued her from solace.

She rebounded from this Athenian king
and died. I hoped mine wouldn't
take my life while Aphrodite's cupid
parted my robes and I bore all.
Ariadne and her drunken God prayed
with their bodies, a dance.

Aphrodite hadn't been there for Ariadne,
but only sent Eros perhaps. Her eyes
rolled over us, though, and when he
entered me, I felt the faint piercing of
an arrow that went through, peeking
from another side I never knew existed.
It stung, but then the waves rolled and
Rolled, rolling and rolling until I called
To my God, where had he been?

We sweated, joined and parted with
no thought given to prayer, but only
selfish desires bathed in a sweat,
salty and sweet, soaked up easily upon
an hour of ten, teased by moon number
Five, it chased and ran, laughing,
Acquiescing with the faint Tap, Tap, Tap
Of twenty dancing cupids while the
Love goddess stood by and shivered.