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Dream of the Huntress

By Robin Robertson b. 1955 Robin Robertson

It is always the same:

she is standing over me

in the forest clearing,

a dab of blood on her cheek

from a rabbit or a deer.

I am aware of nothing

but my mutinous flesh,

and the traps of desire

sent to test it—

her bare arms, bare

shoulders, her loosened hair,

the hard, high breasts,

and under a belt

of knives and fish-lures,

her undressed wound.

Every night the same:

the slashed fetlock,

the buckling under;

I wake in her body

broken, like a gun.

Source: Poetry (March 2002).

Biography

Born in Perthshire, poet Robin Robertson was brought up on the northeast coast of Scotland where, as he says in a 2008 interview, “history, legend and myth merged cohesively in the landscape.” Robertson’s early influences include the stories of Celtic and Classical myth, the vernacular ballads, and folklore. His deeply sensory poems explore notions of love and loss framed by the dialogue between the classical and the . . .

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