3 Poems
First Labor
—after Alexander Calder’s Hercules and the Lion, exhibited at the Art Gallery
of the Bellagio Hotel, Las Vegas, 2001.
So far as I know that master, Alexander Calder,
had never been to Argos no less Vegas,
in 1929 when he sculpted us.
Even so he must have known my brother
was Cerberus. So who could guess a wire twister
like him would dare to bend up such
a joke on me and Hercules, would catch us
in a lark before the big guy used his club, his useless
arrows, on my iron skin. And FYI, he didn’t finish me
with a garrote but strangled me with his bare hands.
Only a demi-god could bring the monster home
slung like a dead cat, coat-hanger ordinary,
then show up at some casino to be crowned
like Hercules, a man fated to throw them bones.