Catherine Combs

Catacombs

Minos had no contradiction,

that could dare her spiraling look,

descending stair-like and camouflaged.

Deeper and deeper the vortex slits sucked

spectral light from the chambered abyss.

The river beetle scurried, burrowing

in the fecund mud of the noonday haze,

panting the next move. The bulrush goddess

with a tawny twitch and blink,

lazing by the ebb’s eddy and merging patterns,

readies to swat the inevitable,

scrunched down and spooning

with the dead geese.