Maze without a Minotaur

If we could only push these walls

apart, unfold the room the way

a child might take apart a box

and lay it flat upon the floor—

so many corners cleared at last!

Or else could rip away the roof

and stare down at the dirty rooms,

the hallways turning on themselves,

and understand at last their plan—

dark maze without a minotaur,

no monsters but ourselves.

Yet who

could bear to see it all? The slow

descending spirals of the dust

against the spotted windowpane,

the sunlight on the yellow lace,

the hoarded wine turned dark and sour,

the photographs, the letters—all

the crowded closets of the heart.

One wants to turn away—and cry

for fire to break out on the stairs

and raze each suffocating room.

But the walls stay, the roof remains

strong and immovable, and we

can only pray that if these rooms

have memories, they are not ours.

Copyright Credit: Dana Gioia, “Maze without a Minotaur” from The Gods of Winter. Copyright © 1991 by Dana Gioia. Reprinted with the permission of Graywolf Press, St. Paul, Minnesota, www.graywolfpress.org.

Source: The Gods of Winter: Poems (Graywolf Press, 1991)