Published in New Verses from New Voices, the second collection of poems of the ‘New Voices’ poetry group, Wellington Square Press, Sydney, 2016, p. 26.
Be careful what you see.
Wretched hunter, Actaeon,
losing direction, stumbles with
lingering attention on Diana,
bathing naked. Vengeful,
her nymphs splash him as recoiling
on hind limbs, he staggers
to a near stream, as antlers
sprout. Then torn apart by a
pack of unchained deer-hunting
hounds once he had trained.
Later in the Metamorphoses,
enraptured by what he believed
a non-selfie, came dawning
revelation of Narcissus’ own face
admired in a pond. Unable
to reach what is close, undivided
by oceans, coasts, by mountains or
by walls with locked doors, enchanted,
the bore pines all the more, immersed,
in a pool of make-believe.
A warning is mirrored on
the water, fate barely perceived.
Be careful what you see.
