What if they’re right
Oedipus had no choice—I mean,
he had choices and made them (not knowing)
knowing full well the warning of the Oracle
not knowing well the implications, correlations beyond his imagination
that’s how they get you (whoever you are)
those who know but do not tell
and wait for you to learn as well
Experience can be the cruelest teacher
ready with bamboo stick to strike the unconscious one
and strike she does in traumatic swings
the unrelenting force of the blind spot revealed in hindsight (maybe)
the Oracle backs up, hands in the air
I tried to warn you, she says
but the grin flashes pointed opportunistic teeth of steel
but what if Oedipus had it easy
what if worse the boy were girl
who somehow in primordial mist mistook her emotional alignment
for providence (called her “my mother”)
and role as protector somehow not so maybe rightly friendship
(“mother?”)
wrongly understood and denied—no sexual predilection
but emotional gender somehow exchanged
beyond her imagination
(like a weed in a sidewalk crack
I will find a place to belong)
how could she have known one
defied the other
invited and accused
allured and rejected
told one thing seeing another
given life and death
a choice
beyond imagination
beyond control
flashing teeth and bamboo rattle
snakes around my memory
Oedipus had it easy
