Ever Green

How does Daphne feel
Trapped in bark?
The result of one god's desire and another's revenge.
Her father wanted grandchildren from her
And the hunter to fulfill his lust.

Poets have portrayed her
Guilty...fearful.
Her fear overpowered her guilt and she ran.
She prayed for mutation, destruction
Desperate to escape, feeling the god's breath on her hair,
And exhausted from the chase.

Peneus granted her prayer with a laurel cage.
Apollo's passion burnt her.
She shrank from his kiss.
Trapped, unable to move
She recoiled from his touch.

As her human heart flutters still beneath the covering bark,
Beneath the unwanted male hand
Her metamorphosis is her hell.
Disobedience does not become Daphne
And her leaves, ever green, despair.