2006 winner

Minotaura: Rainbow's End

They tell me science damns the end
of the rainbow to the realm of dreams
and make-believe: that the gods send

rainbow mist in Mobius strips, that the seams
of reality are taut. That science excludes
Raphael's Transfigured Christ, deems

the sirens just a sailors' fancy; and the nudes
that represent the virgin were modelled on whores.
Science hasn't approached my bull-head; it exudes

disbelieve, while, surreptitious, keeping open doors
to gaze upon me. For this is the story,
fantastical and true: I never questioned my mother's mores,

the lust that led her to the bull, nor the gory
entrapment between Daedalus' walls.
For thirty years, give or take a few, it was me

and my brother: locked up (it galls
me to remember) snacking on the innocent
led to their death at the core. This memory sprawls

across the texts of the ancient world. Blood, blood. We rent
them limb from limb, and drank
deep until the day of Theseus - I spent

weeks making macrame from their guts, from their lank
and bloody hair, while my brother spoke
only in flashes of rage. We stank,

and we never knew it. We never knew what other folk
knew. And Science cannot explain it,
any of it. "Myth," they say. Yet Science broke

the back of myth's dominion. A chemistry kit
and (for instance) instructions on how to (in your own
home) make a compass, and all the monsters lit

out of children's nightmares. Still, their empirical drone
took centuries to take over. Theseus came.
One day. He came and I saw my brother thrown
against the wall. I fled. I took no name.

     by Kate Middleton

Kate Middleton is a Melbourne poet whose work has been published widely in Australia. She has been a guest at the Melbourne Poetry Festival, the National Poetry Festival and the Mildura Writers' Festival. She was the inaugural Australian Book Review poet of the month in September 2006. She recently completed her Honours in Literature at the University of Melbourne.

Shortlisted Poems

All limbs, all at once by Ella Holcombe
Blokes who call red-heads 'Blue' by Dove Rengger-Thorpe
Bromides by B N Oakman
Entering the Centre by Jude Aquilina
Groundwork for Margaret Preston by Jill Jones
Hang-glider by Hylda Rolfe
In a box on the table by Nathan Shepherdson
Night-fishing: Maroochy River by Robyn Nugent