Author: Rowan Smith
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Godsong
It is nearly imperceptible, the whisper of the girls. You can almost convince yourself it’s merely the wind, a figment of your imagination, the breeze through chittering corpses of last season’s bamboo. But then you hear the words. It is a melody. You can feel it in your bones, this song of tears on shallow…
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Pray Predator Prey
Its nostrils widen, pupils dilate. It caught our scent. Sweat, mud, teenage girl, lavender, wormwood. Poor creature has no idea what’s coming for it. Ivy shoots me a grin, more snarl than smile, and I know she feels it too. Feels the doe’s heartbeat pounding with ours, feels it racing and quivering, stuttering to keep…
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The Forest
They came in the night hours, prowling at the edge of the forest. A flash of eyes, the curl of a lip, then darkness once more. They had been in the forest since the beginning. They were the blood the ran through its veins, their wild drums the beat of its heart, their lavender smoke…
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Southern Trees Bear Strange Fruit
Trees can bear scars too. Dark, puckered with sap and pitch, botched attempts by an axe or the vaguely violent will of a summer thunderstorm. These trees have borne witness to our worst moments, here, beneath the sweltering sky, among the blackberry-laden bushes. Every slurred word dripped from our lips coat their leaves like nectar,…
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Nowadays
Most folks don’t remember the witches anymore. My grandbaby ain’t never heard a witchsong, ain’t never seen a ring of mushrooms in the field she plays in. I think this land is too much noise and not enough space for witches to be out and about nowadays. The corner store where I bought penny candy…
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Wild Things
Wild things grow like mad in my town. Ivy winds its way round every porch, spreading its leaves out, thirsty, soaking up the sun with greedy feelers. Blackberry bushes choke out the shrubs that grow in the middle of hayfields, growing berries as big as baby Maybelle’s fist. My mama says it’s unnatural. Then again,…