Tag Archives: Taylor Hamann Los

A woman walked into the forest 
and never came out. In this wood, 
there are eyes rimmed with pine 
and brush and hunger so deep 
it could bend bones. They say 
she wanted a child, but her body 
curled away from blood 
and so she was swallowed
whole, her organs evanescing 
one by one like mist on the creek’s 
stagnant waters. They say the trees 
breathed her in, siphoning her life
because their own children perished 
in the fire. Flames had cast their skeletal 
remains to the forest floor—
this graveyard for squirrels and saplings.
And all that remains of the woman
is the timbre of leaves scratching against
their boughs. They say you can hear 
rustling in the stillest of winters. 
See, even the bark is weeping.

photo by Sonny Sixteen (via pexels)

On this night of salt and fire, 
this night the praying men 
warned of, the mountains 
deepen to indigo with unshed 
grief. Here there is weeping 
and gnashing of teeth, 
water tumbling into the pit. 
O boy with bedraggled cap,
didn’t you know how the goats
would cry when you stacked
kindling by their pen?
O girl with dirty apron,
help me press the fog 
like gauze to our wounds.
We’ll unspool the next hours 
with blackened fingers, 
rain hissing on hot earth. 
I have tasted this smoke 
before, heard chthonic deities  
writhe against their chains. 
Here there is shucking of souls, 
graves cracking open 
among the walnut trees. 
Tomorrow carrion crows
will come. They will pick 
through the bones and erect 
an altar of stone for bodies 
still warm and twitching.
Then the dead will climb
into ancient boats, find 
a river wide and burning.

photo by Alfred Kenneally (via unsplash)