An interconnected family of supernovas burning bright in the night sky: take a moment, reach out—join us.
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.