Tour of the Labyrinth

And this is where they kept it, though their own,
Hungry in the dark beneath the stair,
And fed it apple cores, the odd soup bone,
And virgins with their torches of gold hair.

When howls were heard, they claimed it was the earth,
Subduction of a continental plate,
Put down their sherry glasses with thin mirth,
Excused themselves, and said that it was late.

But when the earth did make a mooing sound,
Stones that had been stacked into the wall
Knelt to the embracing of the ground.
Amid the gravity that struck them all

No one thought to go unlock the door.
Archeologists, amazed to find
A skeleton they were not looking for,
Said it was the only of its kind.

They’ve unravelled the last days of the thing:
It lived a while on rats and bitumen,
And played with its one toy, a ball of string,
To puzzle out the darkness it was in.

© A. E. Stallings—This poem first appeared in The Beloit Poetry Journal