Poems From Providence - The Poet's Press

ARIADNE
P O E M S O F
A N T I Q U I T Y
I’ve walked this edge
of solitude full circle now,
know it to be the island I am.
Sometimes peninsulas suggest
connection to land,
but sunrise never fails to find
me here, astride a rock,
the tide withdrawing
or coming in, the beach
a niche in a forgotten cabinet,
draped with the shorn clothes
of ocean, the false hair
of a reddened jellyfish,
the ribbon green of seaweed.
I launch my fragile bottles
into receding waves.
Inside, my letters beg
for a hasty rescue;
others are for the gods,
beseeching Poseidon
to dash and drown
the traitor Theseus —
the man who brought me
to this nowhere,