This selection, chosen by guest editor H.V. Cramond, is from We are Now the Thing in the Woods by Lauren Parker (Bottlecap Press 2023).
Persephone
In the woods, I want to grow my hair long
Dark ropes winding towards the red dirt
Muddied and wet with spring
The wind mats in my lungs and I carry
The cold prickle of thaw like an urn
River breaking through ice
Fist clenched in soil, freshly softened
If you breathe hard enough, your mouth so
Wide and lips snarled back from your teeth
On numb limbs until you burn back the cold
fingers warm petals against frost
Against the seer of winter, how it bites
How it eats, the birds that live inside
Becomes shell, becomes death
Singing its own funeral song
But still, slithering through earth
I become. Baby seed, released
Crawling towards sun, up out through
In the woods, I want to grow my hair long
Muddled with spring, tasting musk
Lauren Parker is a writer, zinemaker, and visual artist in Oakland, California. She has written for the Toast, Strange Horizons, The Racket, Xtra Magazine, Catapult, and Autostraddle. She is the author of the poetry collection We Are Now the Thing in the Woods with Bottlecap Press, The Dark Way Down with Animal Heart Press (2025), and Spells for Success: 40 Spells to Set Intentions and Manifest Everyday Wins with Simon Element (2025). She also has a newsletter, Do You Want to Do Some Witchcraft?
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