When it was clear I would never catch her
and that she would never escape my pursuit,
Zeus intervened and turned each of us to stone.
No longer was ardor our fate. No longer
were days marked by bramble giving way to bog,
by razory reeds that cut our swift passing.
Days when all I saw of her was airborne,
arrowy—a silvery shimmer and flash of scut.
And gone, too, the late-night stillness
when I’d pause, not thinking to lose her,
but hoping, ahead of my silence,
she’d slow down and turning, see,
snout up, tongue lively, lightly panting,
undiscouraged, how at the edge of our distance
I stood, wishing she’d invite my approach.
But these are dog thoughts and I was god’s
hound by way of Europa, Minos, and Procris,
so much passing on of love’s troubles
I was meant to end. Who wouldn’t want to die
into monumental stillness? Who wouldn’t want
to be frozen in their last untaken step, translated,
like we were—my pointer’s stance, her backward
glance—in the vast sky, where the gods below
had safely placed us?