Daphne

What then this milking, what then
this giving way, everything forsaken—
courage, the spokes of bones, my hair?
In the world of men, I am the font
of abstraction, another myth told small.
They have polished my skin past human,
forced me to run as an athlete runs,
habituated to endurance. Dust
flew from my eyes. I screamed
into the chisel's yawl, I am here!
This fault on my cheek is not a tear
as was intended, but a bead of honest
sweat. Beyond the firmament of matter,
a girl holds wet leaves to her ear.

Copyright © 2007 Barbara Helfgott Hyett All rights reserved
from Rift
University of Arkansas Press
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission