Howl - Maria Picone

tell me about the nights my mother the witch embodied the incandescent goddess moon, before

the burning, when hunters called her tremulous euphemisms—when she laid twigs on a bed of

moss and conceived me from a rabid bear’s foam. how she healed you with periwinkle and mint

stirred counterclockwise; how you stayed wild in no man’s land. clouds above the mire predict

I’ll move to the city, but I’ll never forget the savage west, the love of a woman for a woman,

fireflies like exploded stars bursting out, the way she went up in smoke like a prayer.

//

tell me about the nights my mother the witch embodied the in

candescent goddess moon, before the burning, when h

unters called her tremulous euphemisms—when she laid twigs

on a bed of moss and conceived me from a rabid bear’s

foam. how she healed you with periwinkle and mint stirred count

erclockwise; how you stayed wild in no man’s land. clouds

above the mire predict I’ll move to the city, but I’ll never forget

the savage west, the love of a woman for a woman

, fireflies like exploded stars bursting out, the way she went

up in smoke like a prayer.

//

other the witch embodied ndess moon like a pray er.

before the burning, whers called laid ts on a bed you

move to ttyver forget the up in smoke helloooooooui

Bio: Maria S. Picone is a Korean American adoptee with work in Ice Floe Press, Bending Genres, Whale Road Review and others, including Best Small Fictions 2021. She won Cream City Review’s 2020 Summer Poetry Prize. She is the prose editor at Chestnut Review. Her website is mariaspicone.com, Twitter @mspicone.