Daphne

Poet, Singer, Necromancer—

I cease to run.  I halt you here,

Pursuer, with an answer:

Do what you will.

What blood you've set to music I

Can change to chlorophyll,

And root myself, and with my toes

Wind to subterranean streams.

Through solid rock my strength now grows.

Such now am I, I cease to eat,

But feed on flashes from your eyes;

Light, to my new cells, is meat.

Find then, when you seize my arm

That xylem thickens in my skin

And there are splinters in my charm.

I may give in; I do not lose.

Your hot stare cannot stop my shivering,

With delight, if I so choose.

Alicia E. Stallings

© Alicia E. Stallings.  From Archaic Smile,
University of Evansville Press; reprinted by

permission of the author.