May Lit: Into the Snowy Woods by Shahé Mankerian

May 10, 2016

This poem clearly doesn't quite match with the coming spring, but nonetheless, I loved the play on a well-known poem to turn it into something darker and more melancholy.

--Karissa Chen, Fiction & Poetry Editor


Into the Snowy Woods

We followed the red-dotted trail into the snowy woods.
The injured must have stopped by the farmhouse
and leaned against the withered wheelbarrow.

We checked the blood stain on the white chicken
near the barb wired fence. He must've ran through here
before midnight. The droplets continued on the frozen

lake glazed with rainwater. We heard a queer whistle
as a limping doe crossed the crackling ice sheet.
"It's the wind through the fallen redwoods,"

mumbled the tired hunter with a musket.
I remembered his wounds, dark, deep, and grave.
The harness bells reminded us we still had the horses.

Contributor: 

Shahé Mankerian

Shahé Mankerian's manuscript, History of Forgetfulness, has been a finalist at four prestigious competitions: the 2013 Crab Orchard Series in Poetry Open Competition, the Bibby First Book Competition, the Quercus Review Press (Fall Poetry Book Award), and the 2014 White Pine Press Poetry Prize. His poems have appeared in Mizna. 

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