Theseus slew the Minotaur and escaped

          with the aid of Ariadne’s thread but,

            I learned later—after my mythology book had spent

          dark years mildewing in a box—abandoned her on Naxos.

 

            I came to consider that youth unheroic, more than

            just careless in causing his father’s suicide,

          returning alive from the man-beast’s den,

          and forgetting to change black sail for joyous white.

 

            So I try to reconcile the creep and the hero from

            my reading of long ago, 

 

            and will work on Jason and Medea the same.

          At least she gave her man blood and guts

         and a dragon exit—half of the couple, heroic—

         perhaps.