I tell myself it was a dream
and maybe, truly, it was …
when the Horned God tracked me,
ducking behind a branch or fallen tree,
or standing in open camouflage
when I turned to face my predator.

He did not want my flesh
(not for food!) and yet he pursued me …
pushing me fast and hard
so that I lost my way — breathless,
and sobbing for relief.

He was green and brown and earthy;
a creature born of eastern forest,
birthed by long-forgotten gods
in a time beyond my reckoning.

Man? or Beast? screamed through my brain
as I lay, fallen, in a bed of ferns;
surrendering and allowing.

You’ve brought me to you,
he thought at me.

One does not deny a god.

[Suzanne Reynolds-Alpert writes speculative stories and poetry from her little corner of Massachusetts, where she lives with her husband, two amazing kids, and two mischievous black cats. She has been published in Strong Verse, newWitch, High Coup Journal, Tales of the Zombie War, Luna Station Quarterly, and has self-published a genre-bending poem/short story on Smashwords. She is currently writing a novel about the teenaged embodiment of the Goddess Kwan Yin.]