Actaeon

He walks his mind as a forest
and sends of himself into dark places
to which he cannot tell the way.
The hunt comes on and he in his nerves
streams ahead – hounds flung after
a scent so violent no matter the path
or what’s let fall.
       A burst of clearing.
Water beads and feathers her presence
as she thickens and curves.
He says words to himself not to look
but his eyes are of their own
and she at their centre a dark star
contracting to itself discarding
wave on wave on flare on fountain.
His skull erupting, branching …

And his blood is shaken down.
And he is all fours.
And his noise.
And his hounds.