The Minotaur © by Eva H.D.

The Minotaur
© by Eva H.D.

I am the milkman, and the checkout girl.
I am the grocer, the conman, the faded saint
in the pawnshop window.
I am thinking one thing and saying another.
I am spinning a prayer out of manic luck.
I am painting a cathedral
with bits of green pilfered from your eyes.
I am pilfering bits of green from your eyes
and painting my roof with the leftovers.
I am infiltrating the department of defence
with musicnotes.
I am exchanging twenty submarines
for a half-dozen horn solos and a double bass.
I am also changing everyone’s rank to ‘tenor.’

I am piling bricks in the Sahara.
When I am done, I will step to one side and say,
What desert?

I will pave my flesh like a bunker and cover myself in goosedown.
I will riddle my intestines into a maze.

I am the milkman. I am hardening in your bones.
I am depositing myself in pockets of fat all over your body.
I am the basilisk, the walleyed carp, the card shark.
I am distracting you from my pocketful of aces
with my bellyful of razorblades.

I am the cylinder of morning
slanting like a sandstorm
through your window.
I turn myself upsidedown like a snowglobe and
sketch for you a halo of dust.
I kiss the bridge of your nose.

I am the snowcone vendor and the Turkish tea boy.
I am the splinter in your paw, the lunch-hour rush,
the Dundas sunset.
I am curled up on your doorstep.
I am ready to come in.