Apollo Catches Daphne

Better this, then, than the dreams

of her meadowsweet hair, or her

twiglike fingers, caught against

my thigh, her scent—call it floral

or bloody, like a rose. Women

are always turning into something

else. I’ve seen the slim legs

that cattails make, and white arms

pitched like a tent, those feathered

things called dresses, the talons

strapped to fingernails or feet.

Something in them wants to be

something strange, something

to do with beauty, I suppose, though

beauty is not the god of which

I speak. I mean the tremble before

they walk into any room, head held

high, the twitch beneath the skin.

I mean that itch to grow scales or sap,

to erupt into boils, to burst. I mean

Daphne, calling on that power,

as if she had any, the hard crack

of her laureled limbs, like a tree-fall,

or a shot. Yes, I got what I wanted—

what I saw before I saw nothing.