Minotaur’s Sisters

Do they still sell those scarves we tied
to our wrists and spun
like parasols, sold with marbles
to each other, muddied as spies and spit
our teeth into?

Ariadne dug labyrinthine trenches, soil
up around her ears, shucking arms
like the boys: from the vantaged
tree stump, set her black sail rippling.

Orchard squirrels gash each pear
lick nectar wounds, move on
no sense of time, ripening
Of loss. We’re told
that we are loved alike.
We were each-others mothers, fathers
lovers, friends in turn.

Stilt backwards, silken thread
spools, unspools through
fingers. A slipping guide, a lifetime
held in memories: he was her brother
half-brother, half bull. Amazed,
her love is shooting the squirrel before,
unmanned, he cannot crack

the leaded gun. His hand
her brother’s hand, relentless
on her thigh. Forget it.
We were young. The veins of homesick
traced, re-traced: rootbound. Big sister
kind of love.

By Brynn Cook

Biography:

Brynn Cook was born and raised in Southern California, leaving to spend six years pursuing her PhD at the University of Virginia. Brynn has now returned to her home state, and currently lives with her husband and twin sister in the best possible shelter-in-place scenario. Brynn has been published in Chaparral poetry, and writes poetry with the hope of one day distilling the strange call of warm October winds.