Actaeon I

Loyalty is fickle; a superficial change will turn

the tide with ease; the splintering headache is receding—

or is it replaced by aches in other places—

and he becomes aware of his body carrying

him swiftly on four legs, not two; he cries

out, and a cry indeed leaves his lips, but the words

that fill his head remain trapped

in his chest and his mind; the irony does not elude

him and he races a mad race; branches,

twigs, leaves, pebbles brush his hide—his hide—

but in his crazed chase they are barely

an afterimage of a poorly registered event; loyalty

makes itself known now and he can no longer

ignore it; his lonely tracks are joined by others:

swifter than he who is not yet settled

in this body ; more confident these tracks

that have mastered their self; louder these tracks

which surround him; farther, far, now

close, closer, closest, their bellows

announce triumph for him, their master

Actaeon, and he runs himself into a dead end

of the chase for him; for them, a beginning.