Liz Kay

IN THE FOREST: THE WITCH WAS LOST AND FOUND

Wind-stripped of leaves, the trees crook
craggy fingers, beckon

in a confusion of directions: come here

                                             and here

                      and here

                                                         and here

No path is clear. Crows settle
in the peak of a hawthorn, as far from reach

as a berry in the heart of a bramble.
The way home twists before me

crackling beneath the dry leaves and the wild
grasses with their frost-softened blades.

I want to tuck into the low branches
of a poplar, make myself a place to stay,

but in the distance, I hear my father calling
and the air          shatters          in my lungs.

Liz Kay is a founding editor of Spark Wheel Press and the journal burntdistrict. Her poems have appeared in such journals as Willow Springs, Beloit Poetry Journal, and Sugar House Review. Her debut novel, Monsters: A Love Story, will be published by G. P. Putnam's Sons in 2016.