As my grandmother cooked matzo ball soup, I played in the tall yellow field. She hummed, watching me from behind the window. I had been told by her before: Never go into those woods! When she turned around, I moved farther down the forbidden path. Trees, once on the horizon, grew over me. I lost myself in the sounds of a whistling brook and the deep hum of hornets. The summer leaves turned a golden crisp, glimmering against the sunlight. Captivated by beauty, I hardly noticed rocks protruding from the ground. I tripped and fell into a green mass covered with bright chicory. In the strange form, I found eyes and lips mangled in the earth. A man’s face and body had become a part of the woods. I screamed and dug, searching for his heart, but all I found was a rib cage filled with mud and grime. Why was he here? I asked him over and over again. But everything was quiet. I stayed, waiting for any sign of life, but the man never moved. My grandmother called in the distance, “Katarina! Katarina!” I didn’t want to leave and never find him again. “Katarina! Katarina!” Returning to the canary grass, I ran toward the familiar cottage door. Pausing only once to look back at the horizon, but the woods behind me had disappeared.

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Jamie Seibel’s work is forthcoming in Versification Poetry Zine, Wingless Dreamer, The Tiger Moth Review, Plum Tree Tavern, and Poetry Pacific. Her poem “War Stone” was published in a previous issue of The Chamber Magazine. This story is her first published micro-fiction. 

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