A nymph is a doorway, a passing through. Not larva, not pupa. A nymph is becoming. A nymph is on her way. A nymph is a swift-limbed girl who can outrun a tired old man, but can she outrun a god?

A nymph is danger-prone. As you were, Daphne.

I think of the party, senior year, and the friend who locked herself in the bathroom. How her ex-boyfriend’s pounding on that door sounded like a battering ram laying siege to a medieval castle. Kill you, bitch! Don’t you lock me out!

And when his friends took him away to “chill out,” when we outwitted the door lock with her mother’s credit card, how we found her passed out, head against the dusty-rose toilet cozy, hands holding the only two weapons she could find. Blow dryer. Can of Aqua-Net.

And you, Daphne: when your fleeing feet burst into bark, rooted, reaching hands green-budded, did you bless this escape? Or did you wonder why pursued and not pursuer was transformed? Did you imagine, instead, a forest of over-reaching lustful gods metamorphosed into trees, and yourself, walking freely, swinging an ax?