BY E. B. SCHNEPP
there once was a girl who forgot everything,
who named herself Gretel.
All lost Gretels were smart enough
to get themselves found and the forest found her;
the forest whispered to her,
a many headed beast, a mother.
The snakes, the coy wolves, taught her to run,
to pounce, to be venomous. Until Gretel-girl
devoured her brother; her first skull war-stolen,
kept to reminisce of days before
the world turned on its head. Before he was renamed
Sweet and Eaten. Before Gretel named herself,
when she was feral and they were feral together,
but every forest needs a witch.
E.B. Schnepp is a poet hailing from rural Mid-Michigan who currently finds herself stranded in the flatlands of Ohio. Her work can also be found in Hypertrophic Lit, Maudlin House, and Crab Fat, among others.