Ken Anderson
In the dark wood,
where the raven squawks, invisible among the boughs, the poet waits with your curved silhouette
in his eye.
His hand opens, revealing claws, one long claw’s tip a star.
Two nacreous horns jut
from his mane— voluptuous tresses trailing down his back. They cast bent shadows down the path
when moonlight breaks.
Incredibly tall, he steals toward you
on legs
with shaggy muscles, goat tail curled with aplomb.
A shock of hair
around the ankle hides the juncture
of the skin and hoof.
In the dark wood,
where the spider weaves its silvery web, the poet waits with your curved silhouette
in his eye.
***
Ken Anderson was a finalist in the 2021 Saints and Sinners poetry contest. His novel Sea Change: An Example of the Pleasure Principle was a finalist for the 2012 Ferro-Grumley Award and an Independent Publisher Editor’s Choice. His novel Someone Bought the House on the Island was a finalist in the Independent Publisher Book Awards. A stage adaptation won the Saints and Sinners Playwriting Contest and premiered May 2, 2008, at the Marigny Theater in New Orleans. An operatic version premiered June 16, 2009, at the First Existentialist Congregation in Atlanta. The Statue of Pan (screenplay) was an Official Selection at the LGBTQ Unbordered International Film Festival.