The Huntress

My body withers, and yet I hunt the sands, in search of a fleeting vision of her. Her hair hung low in a heavy braid, draped over her fur-covered breast. Pelts and bones were the only garments that adorned her lithe body, and her green eyes stared through me as I rose from the pools. She, the lioness, and I, her startled prey. I froze, and the cumbersome words of man left me. It was not the desert lions that flanked her that sapped the strength from my knees, but my own, insatiable desire. As they, I yearned for her touch, for the caress of her supple fingers, winding their way through my rival’s mane. Did her cheeks flush with color as she disappeared silently into a mist of sand? After, I lay for many days in a dazed and troubled heat, speaking only of her, my madness reflected in the gentle eyes of those who tended me.