The Minotaur

The mahogany table-top you smashed

Had been the broad plank top

Of my mother's heirloom sideboard-

Mapped with the scars of my whole life.

That came under the hammer.

That high stool you swung that day

Demented by my being

Twenty minutes late for baby-minding.

'Marvellous!' I shouted, 'Go on,

Smash it into kindling.

That's the stuff you're keeping out of your poems!'

And later, considered and calmer,

'Get that shoulder under your stanzas

And we'll be away.' Deep in the cave of your ear

The goblin snapped his fingers.

So what had I given him?

The bloody end of the skein

That unravelled your marriage,

Left your children echoing

Like tunnels in a labyrinth.

Left your mother a dead-end,

Brought you to the horned, bellowing

Grave of your risen father

And your own corpse in it.