PROLOGUEThe Oracle
Time moves in spirals;
we are flotsam on Time’s sea.
Time moves in spirals
and repeats its tragedies.
This story is about two boys,
separated by centuries,
parted by myth,
divided by reality.
Two boys hoping to be men.
Two boys severed from their fathers.
Two boys searching a maze of manhood.
One in ancient Greece
from a time of magic and mythos.
One in modern London,
a city of delusion and gloss.
I am the Oracle,
your thread through this maze
as two boys start their journeys.
No step will escape my gaze.
Let me hold your hand
through these dark and winding lands.
Let us discover together
what it means to be a man.
CHAPTER 1 Theo Theo First Hears of Theseus
I’m doodling again,
geometric patterns and swirls.
Mr. Addo doesn’t mind.
He lets me doodle—
knows it helps me think.
Mr. Addo is silent again. He does this thing
when he forgets words—
presses thumb and forefinger
to the bridge of his nose and massages,
as if memory is a small furry thing
behind the eyes that needs coaxing.
He massages and ignores
our word offerings
until memory squeals to his stroking.
“Manhood—Theseus’s story
is about manhood—
about fathers and sons,
about nature and nurture,
about legacy and destiny,
about parents and their children
and what it means to be a man.”
I nearly say something
before remembering
the happy-family kids around me—
the two-parent kids,
big-house-in-Putney kids,
been-on-a-plane kids,
have-the-full-Sky-package kids.
I rest my head back on my arms
and listen to Mr. Addo tell Theseus’s story.
I scratch a poem title
into my book . . .
Theseus Killed Them! Theseus Killed Them!
“Your father is a king,” said his mother.
“Just lift this heavy rock—
he left some things for you
to prove you’re kingly stock.”
Beneath the rock he found:
sandals and a sword.
Sandals for a journey,
a sword for the criminal hordes.
Theseus walked his father’s road
but the way was filled with tests.
He had to battle six enemies
and prove he was the best.
The first was Periphetes,
who was a little dim.
Theseus took his bronze club;
Theseus killed him.
The second was Sinis,
who killed with a bent-tree limb.
He ripped his victims in two;
Theseus killed him.
The third was a pig
who’d been causing quite a stir.
She was the Crommyonian Sow;
Theseus killed her.
The fourth was Sciron,
who gave his victims a surprise swim.
He’d feed them to a monster turtle!
Theseus killed him.
The fifth was Cercyon,
a king who wrestled for a whim.
He’d wrestle strangers to death;
Theseus killed him.
The sixth was the innkeeper Procrustes,
who liked everything to be trim,
forcing guests to fit his bed!
Theseus killed him.
When the killing journey was done
Theseus found his father’s kingdom grim,
the young yearly killed by the Minotaur . . .
so Theseus killed him!
All About the Minotaur
We have to choose
a subject for our
English coursework.
I choose
to write about Theseus.
Everything is just about him and the Minotaur.
I choose
to delve into his journey to his father.
I choose
to start reading
everything I can about him.
Everything is all about the bull.
Everything is all about the Minotaur.
Everything is about muscle and horns.
Everything is about bestial strength,
blood and bones.
I choose
to make my coursework
a series of poems
about his search for his father.
“Why Can’t I See Dad?”
I’ve noticed a silence
whenever I ask about my father.
Unspoken whisperings
mumble behind my mother’s sealed lips.
I last saw him
in a mudslide of argument.
Told never to open the door to him,
to stonewall his calls
and brick up his letters.
Seventeen now and feeling the weight
of a father’s absence.
Manhood’s become a rock
I cannot lift alone.
It’s more than the clichéd stuff,
the girl stuff,
the body-changing stuff.
It’s an energy thing.
A sit-back-and-relax-with-Dad thing.
A kick-off-your-sandals-and-trade-sword-stories thing.
But my mother’s silence is immovable
as I try to pry up the edges
of her secrets.
Offerings
Years of sacrifice,
years of feeding
quivering concerns
into the flaring snout of my mind.
I wanna see my dad But he left us I don’t need him But I miss him If he cared, he’d call Who can I ask . . . ? If he cared, he’d send a card Who would understand? What parts of me are like him? There Is a Stone in my Chest
Mark and I map the future
on a rainy walk home after school.
He wants to be a journalist.
His dad will teach him how to drive,
he’s already picked his universities,
his parents will be at the open houses,
his dad lets him sip raindrops of whiskey
on sleepless nights.
His dad tells him how to talk to girls,
how to be respectful,
how to listen
like leaves listen to morning dew.
My mum tells me . . .
“You don’t have to go to university—
no one in our family has. You’ll drown.”
My mum says . . .
“Splash your name onto the council housing list.”
My mum says . . .
“Not another drab open house—
I’m not going again.”
Dad would want me to go.
On his hailstone visits
he’d complain to Mum . . .
“Why can’t this boy read?”
Because no one taught me how. There is a stone in my chest
when I think of my father.
A stone I cannot lift.
A stone that settles its weight
when I visit the barber’s alone,
when my body blooms.
There is a stone in my chest
that I cannot lift.
Copyright © 2023 by Joseph Coelho; illustrated by Kate Milner. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
