There Was a Deer Whom the Carthean Nymphs Held Sacred
        —Metamorphoses, Ovid

I was a god in that body.
                Out of my head grew
                                a splendid rack of antlers

I bore through the high streets
                like a fine dendritic arbor.
                                My beloved, Cyparissus,

strung a large pearl
                over my forelock; it bobbed
                                like a globe of thought.

He rode me bareback
                or led me by a poppy bridle.
                                To go about was to be loved.

I was welcome in parlors and gardens.
                Children wove me garlands
                                of gardenia, bleeding heart,

and the mistletoe my darling's bow
                released from high trees.
                                Mothers rocking babies on porches

offered a breast to me.
                On the day the blossoms fell,
                                I lay dreaming in the grove

and was taken from this life—
                oh the horror of my beloved's error—
                                shot through like any being.

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Copyright © 2015 Kathleen Halme All rights reserved
from My Multiverse
New Issues Poetry & Prose
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission