Queen of the Night

- after Leonora Carrington's "And then We Saw 
the Daughter of the Minotaur" 

We wished to tell her 
of certain buds that bloom 

only one night of the year— 
about how, when at last they raise 

their heads, the perianth opens
and the ivory wings of petals 

fall away. Finally, from out of one 
of the glass balls we rolled into 

her lair, some seed must have broken 
free. The ceiling rejoiced by building 

a softer canopy of clouds. The garment 
her father was always trying to unravel 

stayed faithful to her body. We witnessed 
how she had not burned herself into coal, 

how the years of solitude had merely curved
the points of her horns into softer filaments 

resemblimg those growing out of the sex 
of flowers. We were as curious as she was 

about the guide dressed in gauze, dancing 
to a melody only it could hear; it pointed 

toward an archway through which soft sepia 
light spilled, as if from the mouth of a bell.