Orbit of pupils lined with the white color of the bull lain with Pasiphaë,

O, great nymph’d goddess, pacify

When in the fire, hung with cactus, I am strict as the ridges on the lining of the oven

Go upstairs to the kitchen and fetch me some heaven

You’ll know it when you see it,

Pitted, with a mauve blood around the edge

In what capacity, Pasiphaë,

Do we pacify, and crucify?

Call me ill, if illness is rescued appetite

Too ill to make the journey up the oven ridges that parade as house stairs

Wooden- like the nose of the lie you’ve told

That Appalachian trek of dishonest saccharine naivety

You said you wanted me up the stairs and in the kitchen to find heaven

But Pasiphaë, do not will yourself to wait

Fuck the white bull and find your heaven in the meat of the kitchen

While I quote Homer in the basement

All I ask is you scrap the act of innocent betrayal once you’re down

Eat the animal and kiss the stove when you finish

I wish I could make you know how I feel about you

I could have my way with you — your acceptances — cram undulating, undesirable novelettes down your throat till, you can be so aware

It is more than any sentence of desire that you could skillfully skip up into meringue — bite-sized, fog-shaped — but I concede to your simplicity of ‘want’ and ‘like’

We want, we like

I want, you like

You want, I like

We trot ahead

And whisper our likes and wants

And you step up to the kitchen to find me a bit of heaven

And instead, you find a horned son of Pasiphaë, pacify

You choose truth where he sees no such quandary

This is objective evidence of our superiority over the beasts

Just because you are no daughter does not make you a son

You are what you eat

You can be heaven, or you could be meat.