From the attic of my heart,
I witness his prostration to the filling moon,
the lunacy of his wanting,
the swerve of his neck to reach his white flick of tail.
I watch him preen his
ripe and tufted fur,
willing centaur,
half deer, once an unbroken man,
antlers forming,
piercing through skin
to touch the night with longing,
constellation branched points of bone
that call Artemis down from moon-filled sky.
Artemis,
huntress with bow,
arrow of lust,
moon rumor of requited love
that wakes his body from its hooves,
evaporating desire in carnal spray on trees,
she sees him, hunted,
her silver eyes recognize the prey of her last full moon,
now bloomed into this man-beast,
with his agile limbs and quick feet,
he bucks and grazes on wild berries,
staining his lips with the blued hue of night,
to welcome in the paleness of her milky way bosom.
There is a scar on his right shoulder blade,
from where her arrow pierced his flesh.
He broke off the shaft,
did not pull the arrow through
so as to have a part of her inside him always.
I watch their love-making,
a beautiful dance of limbs and weaponry and silver,
everything silver,
the pale Artemis and her man-deer, her dear man.
When the tidal currents of ocean swell
again to meet the night,
I will watch them,
the hunter and the hunted,
these lovers mounted in the stars,
I will watch them,
and wish for an arrow to fall from the sky into my open heart.

[Kai Coggin is a poet and author living on the side of a small mountain in Hot Springs, AR. She holds a degree in Poetry and Creative Writing from Texas A & M University. Her work has been published or is forthcoming in Split This Rock, Yellow Chair Review, Lavender Review, Elephant Journal, The Bitchin’ Kitsch, Cliterature, ITWOW, [empath] quarterly, Catching Calliope, and other journals, as well as anthologized in several collections.  Kai is the author of Periscope Heart (Swimming with Elephants Publications, 2014).  She is also a Teaching Artist with the Arkansas Arts Council, specializing in bringing poetry and creative writing to youth.  www.kaicoggin.com]