TAMING THE MINOTAUR

TAMING THE MINOTAUR dream sequence

I was buying 2nd hand sheets in the Avignon pattern

I will only have to pay my grandmother 
for what I take with me

but I have to wash them first

I'm sorting my jewelry in the wet black dirt

by stone and color and metal 
Sifting through my heritage—

a hammered brooch with a ruby garnet 
the triangle of the goddess

like an eye, the eye of the bull in Sephanie's barn

and I'm washing my jewelry at the laundromat

My mother comes out, 
I'm afraid she'll steal them and we're fighting

I scream do you know what it's like 
to be the daughter of a schizophrenic?

the shame, and in public
she gets more outrageous,

it's an act I tell her, we are close to blows

my truck turns into a horse 
wheeling and snorting when I try to get near.

Inside my truck is my bed but it is frozen

I want to put my amulets 
and jewelry in it but it won't let me

I can't return them to the frozen womb.

when my brother chases it, it makes it worse

he challenges the monster into the barn

a great dark beast with foliage

sage shaking from his body

the Minotaur come thundering out of his lair.

I'm hanging from two meathooks on the barn wall

as he smashes into it, his hot breath on my heels

my brother tricks it into another ring

he continues to run until he severs a foreleg

and turns into a small bronze bull

but still we can't stop him

even on three legs he charges

why were we teasing him, coaxing him

out of the darkness when he was in a pure rage

no reasoning here

we had to transform him, capture him

so he wouldn't ambush us

he said, this is where my father 
enters into the relationship

when it gets real. 
This is where my mother enters into it

the shame of family madness

I won't carry the burden, 
I owe that allegiance to myself.

8/21/90