Two Poems by E.B. Schnepp
/If a girl
toss an apple, once bitten, over your shoulder.
if tossed its peel will unravel, spell
out the name of your husband-to-be—I tossed an apple once
bitten over my shoulder, but what blossomed
in soft leaves, hardening autumnal earth was not a name
I could pronounce, not one that could belong to any man;
what blossomed was a forest so I married that instead.
A Field Guide for Bats
When the forest calls I’ll go
willingly, grow my antlers
velveteen and bloody, an offering
to anything that wants my bones. The coyote,
he kept his milk teeth,
but he’s no less hungry. Here
even the rabbits are cannibals,
they’re just better at hiding it than most;
they simply distend their jaws, swallow.
If I lay hushful,
bald and naked, breathless,
an imitation of still born,
they would consume me too.
In the dark cavern
of a soft mammalian body I’d find a different
sort of nature, where bats could be born,
and go deeper. Find welcome and water—
it was in this sweet grass I fell asleep
and a garter snake dreamed with me,
curled in the hollow of my throat, scales
rasping against my skin, he nuzzled there.
Worried himself closer;
I knew enough to stay motionless,
to let him be the first to leave.
E.B. Schnepp is a poet currently residing in Chicago. Their work can also be found in Up the Staircase, Molotov Cocktail, and Lumiere, among others.
