POETRY

Ariadne in Triptych

By Stephanie Yue Duhem     VOLUME 56 No. 2

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    after Donald Justice’s “There Is a Gold Light in Certain Old Paintings”

Every ball I’ve given, princess that I am,
has been of thread. To every man my father thought
a threat—a blade of coal to black the family name
or to bloody my dress, muddy my thought.
    True, the words of men have been as soft as hands
    as I pressed my modest gift into their hands.

Men are good at leaving things behind.
At garlanding the land they’ve taken, studding the earth
with detritus: glass, paper, nautili, twine.
But who might read his own signs in the earth
    and kiss the affable face of gravity
    with smiles, instead of with gravity?

Here is forgiveness, or a certain skew of light
fading my image. They all leave richer, redder
with health, gentler with lovers. Let
another offer wine redder
    than I remembered.
    An opulent mouth I’ve touched, or dreamt of, or remembered.

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STEPHANIE YUE DUHEM is a poet and educator, completing her MFA at UT Austin. A 2020 Best of the Net nominee and a 2021 Pushcart nominee, she has published in a variety of journals.


VOLUME 56 No. 2