I’ve never heard, but wish to,
the children of the night;
their collective otherworldly keening
breaking the crystal glass of cold evening
is something I know my body would know,
and my muscles shiver at, instinctively.
My cousins once found a blacksnake napping
in a dawn-warmed tin bucket,
carried it to the edge of the woods,
then hacked it to pieces. My neighbors
upon finding a family of foxes denned
among the trees beside my home,
poisoned them all, mother, father, kits.
Once when my aunt and I were peeking
into the dark interior of a house for sale,
my aunt took off her flip flop
and stood on one foot to smash
to death a spider minding her web.
But I would gladly pull back a bit, give back
the terror the forests once commanded.
To carry fear as my mothered carried
the wolf spider in a glass jar,
across the deep yard, past the road
and into the trees to release it there.
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Mary Ann Honaker is the author of Becoming Persephone (Third Lung Press, 2019). Mary Ann holds an MFA in creative writing from Lesley University. She currently lives in Beaver, West Virginia.
Photo by Thomas Bonometti.
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