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The Ballad of Artemis

Dana Blatte

In my hands I could grapple with the sound

of the rabbit shearing its pelt.


A rabbit scampers through the background

like a soured dream. Its breaths quiver, arrows


finding homes like breaths between the trees. I want nature

as target practice. My body the hunter


& the hunted. I could name the ways my body doesn’t match:

my eyes wider than the rabbit’s. My toes losing skin


like cleft vowels. When I want to bleed I widen

for the moon to chap my thighs. It is not easy to love


the image you create. Sometimes I love

the trees counting themselves, outrunning me.


I wear the rabbit fur as moon shroud, an arrow running

in my fist. It does not parallel my tongue, too slender


for the thickness of my lisp. I speak and nature’s fist

stops to listen. If I wanted, I could own it all, the archer


& the prey. I could listen, winging my breaths from target

to tree trunk, touching the past before it leaves.

About the Author

Dana Blatte is a high school junior from Massachusetts. Her work is published in Fractured Lit, Up the Staircase Quarterly, Peach Magazine, and more. She loves bedroom pop, fairytales, and almond butter. Find her on Twitter @infflorescence.

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