And now I remember how unfair
it seemed, Theseus abandoning Ariadne
on Naxos, simply because she was no longer
useful to him—
and we can all do it, can’t we? Offer direction
through the labyrinth, take on others’ dreams
as our own, wait patiently and naively
for a future only we believed in? I imagine
her at the harbor, holding the lines, ready
to sail off to horizons unknown, unaware
that he would drop her at the first possible
opportunity.
He must have been pleased with himself
when he finally returned to Crete to marry
her sister Phaedra, whom he had desired all
along, not caring what became of the girl
who’d bet everything on him and lost:
Pay attention. This story ended with a god
falling so deeply in love with that girl
that when she died he hurled her circlet
of flowers into the night sky where it still
sparkles in our time, the Corona Borealis.
I’ve never understood what prize
Phaedra thought she got
out of the deal.