Labyrinth 45

The boy in the labyrinth hums. An old tune. A tune from a long dream. A dream with beasts, filled with the odor of cumin and turmeric. A yellowed melody heard from somewhere but he cannot remember, having spent so many days looking at the sky, losing his place in the maze. Smells of earth, thick and autumnal. And the soft red spiral wound around his wrist. The red yarn of his spent spool twangs its own nag in the hollows of the underworld. Perhaps, the boy thinks, the note breathed into its knots and tangles will sound out a path. Minor chords. An elegy. A dirge by one who moved by darkness, drawn to its black possibility.

Author of the article

Oliver de la Paz is the author of three collections of poetry, Names Above Houses (SIU Press), Furious Lullaby (SIU Press), and Requiem for the Orchard(U. of Akron Press). He is the co-editor of A Face to Meet the Faces: An Anthology of Contemporary Persona Poetry. A founding member, he co-chairs the advisory board of Kundiman, a not-for-profit organization dedicated to the promotion of Asian American Poetry. A recipient of a NYFA Fellowship Award, and a GAP grant from Artists’ Trust, his work has appeared in journals like The Southern Review, Virginia Quarterly Review, North American Review, Tin House and in anthologies such as Asian American Poetry: The Next Generation. He teaches at the creative writing program at Western Washington University.