Upon losing my gold star & being confronted by Diana, I, Callisto, tell my story

nymphae sensisse feruntur *
—Ovid, Metamorphoses, Book II, l. 452)

blazing in my marrow
laid down the quiver to
greet the god in long fa-
miliar grasses wet
before his carbon-grey
likeness where later’d hate
the trees that know my damp
secrets & later’d be
hated by you o god
-dess who once cooed over
my mother-of-pearl shine
[guarded by the fluttering
arms of yr thick forests]
prized not quite w/ need [say
the poets] but more some-
thing like yr throat stuffed up
w/ lilies banish me
my brow downcast & my
silence deep & reddening
[all the nymphs can feel it]
hemmed in by heavenly
wrath & this my spoiled body

●    “It is said that the nymphs could feel it.” (My translation.)