Goddess of the Hunt

The cello for me bears an agony like the hunter's
Accidental desire—when the immortal can only be satisfied
By dogs

Tearing his arms and legs from his body
Which was a deer's.

When I met my last lover
We both had the same loneliness for one another we both
Needed someone whose wounds
Would wet our own.

Now music is my true solitude, not his white shoulder
That swung loosely under my chin.
Not the length of his leg
Bending over me, my canoe of blood.

Now in my nights I have madness
I have the bodies of strangers
Like needy children. I do not need them.
I am no mother.

Like the goddess of compliments and affections
I need no one.

The cello echoes the sort of distant calls
I imagine Actaeon, exhausted in his suffering,
Cried over the forest as a deer.

Now the animal is loss
And my body aches as though for the mouths
Of rabid dogs.

Lover I no longer possess, satisfaction
Is true punishment. For when the last call
Signals that my enemy finally has gone, I know
The first silence enters
Both useless and beautiful at once.

Copyright © 2007 Miguel Murphy All rights reserved
from A Book Called Rats
Eastern Washington University Press
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission