qarrtsiluni

by Theresa Williams

dear i m a superhero,

thanks for the mailart depicting the minotaur with the menacing head and slim, innocent body of an adolescent.   it put me in the mind of a photograph i once found of the baby minotaur sitting on his mother s knee, his little head turned toward her breast.  he looks sweet as the baby jesus.  he looks like the baby jesus wearing a mask he made in kindergarten.

you probably  know about pasiphae, his mother and minos his father,  but don t think of this married couple hurting each other. think of the minotaur who wasn t  always a beast.  once he was a baby.  once he was even a god, worshipped by the cretans.

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Theresa Williams has work forthcoming or published in Barnwood, Contemporary Haibun 12, Gargoyle, Paterson Literary Review, The Prose Poem Project, This, Segue, Up the Staircase Quarterly, and many others. This poem is part of a collection of prose poems she’s working on called “the eternal network” in which the unnamed speaker writes a series of letter responses to the mail art community. The image accompanying the poem is an original collage by Theresa and an actual piece of mail art.