The island was rich, fecund, brutal.
A young man arrived by vessel
bound up like a slave,
even in rags he swaggered,
his copper hair flashing in the sun.
When the king's enamoured daughter
slipped him a lifeline,
the thread glinting in his palm,
it was clear the gods backed him.
After luxurious ceremonies,
indulgent banquets,
when he slit the neck of the beast,
when he cut that god-awful scream
right out of its pulsing throat,
he noticed the stench
of fetid flesh
writhing with larvae,
the twisted clumps
of excreted bodies
crusting solid in the heat.
Only then did he realise,
he had cut the beast free.
