by Gordon Taylor
I bet you didn't know the contract with the mountain
allowed Sisyphus one night off a week.
He'd tether the boulder with burlap rope to a hook
drilled deep into the peak's shale and let it dangle
like a halved Newton's Cradle. I bet you didn't
know Sisyphus changed into the same sweat-stained gold
lamé short shorts, sashaying to a nightclub.
Another kind of work. Werk, he called it. Also, twerk.
Every night Sis would dance with a shirtless Zeus
until curfew. I bet you didn't know you can kiss a god
and disappear. I bet Zeus whispered Sis looked super
cute, as if every meeting was their first.
Still, every night, Sisyphus was seduced by thick
ten-carat chains and left the club with Hades.
Gordon Taylor is a queer, emerging poet who walks an ever-swaying, braided wire of technology and poetry. A 2022 Pushcart Prize nominee, his poems have appeared in Narrative, Cincinnati Review, Fiddlehead, Malahat Review and more. Gordon is the winner of the 2026 Ellis prize in Poetry from New Ohio Review. He writes to invite people into a world they may not have seen.