Three Poems after Ovid's The Metamorphoses
Actaeon
Don't
look,
he thought,
but he did,
fearing what he saw,
alert to the change in himself.
Until now he'd been just a lad hunting with hound dogs.
Eyes know your desires before you do, he discovered in that surprised unblinking glance.
Arousal felt bestial to this embarrassed young man.
The transformation was instant
and the first horn grew.
Love's not blind,
he thought,
for
stags.
The young hunter Actaeon accidently comes across the goddess
Diana's secret bathing pool. She is furious that he has seen her naked,
and turns him into a stag. He is devoured by his hunting dogs.
