Content Warning: allusions to self-harm
Suze Kay – I learned to love it better
Despite the bugs or maybe for them
the forest shivered magic through its
performance of normal forest clearing
and I saw it. Named it:
Loon call was a lover leaving,
birch bark like a ribbon furling.
Leaves were made to feed the
fruiting body, and the bee sting
was nothing but a challenge:
How much do you want to know?
What are you willing to risk? I felt
the shrinking edges of the wild
like a razor slipping. I saw the body
then the bones then nothing at all
but mushrooms sprouting
on the spot come May.
Suze Kay is a pastry chef in New Jersey by day and a writer whenever the oven's off. Her poetry is published or forthcoming in Ginger Bug Press, Wasteland Review, Bus Talk Lit, and Moss Puppy Magazine. She loves liminal spaces, one song on repeat, and her little gray cat, Aura. You can find her on Twitter @suz_chef.
Photograph: Lost in the Woods by Lisa Wright
Lisa Wright is a freelance writer, book reviewer, and amateur photographer. Her work has been featured in Peatsmoke Journal, mixed mag, unstamatic, Lavender Bones, Atlantic Northeast, and Cool Beans Lit, among others. In her spare time, she enjoys baseball (go Phils!), U.K. dramas, mysteries, and panel shows, cooking, baking, and exploring the great outdoors with her partner, John.