Quadriplegia
After Apollo left,
Daphne stood in the forest
entirely a tree.
Her heart had stopped beating.
Her panting
had slowed to a tingling sensation,
like the drawing of an infinitely deep breath
that was the water climbing up her xylem.
In place of her vision
was a heightened sense of hearing
as if she were a field of ears through which children ran,
and that was the wind turning her leaves.
She gathered her will
to wake herself from a fearful dream,
but no branch moved.
She screamed
and made no sound.
She felt the air get colder
and knew that the sun had set.
She recalled the god chasing her
down a forest path lit like a stage,
the heat of his breath
singeing the hair on her neck.
It all seemed so long ago.
Each night, she forgot life
until, by winter,
she did not remember her name.
A long branch had grown
from what had been her neck.
The gray trunk had thickened around
what had been her spine
and met the ground like mangled feet,
where black roots held the earth
with a longing incapable by men.
When it would rain,
the filtered sap filled her leaves
as blood fills a wound,
and she felt an inexplicable sadness
at having survived,
and having survived,
what could she do
but believe she were a tree?