Sotto Voce

from Miracle Strip by Matt Layne

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lyrics

Sotto Voce

A soft crick.
A branch snaps.
A leaf crunches.
The woods go silent, and I freeze on Possum Loop Trail.
My ego wild-birds away into the gray morning light.
Pupils dilate. My mouth, a desert,
and fear’s cold nose snuffles the blackberry brambles
around my heart. I want to run, but I’m rooted here
as 4th grade and food chains mingle in my mind
with a friend’s story of a black bear at sunset.
Rumors of a mountain lion.
Tooth, fur, claw, bite, and I
with nothing but a too-small stick and a rush of adrenaline.
The woods remain hushed, and I turn to go, when,
with flurr of leaf and twig,
a speckled doe steps out, a spindly-legged truth.
Her dark eyes stay on me as she fades into the forest quilt.
A chime of wrens is answered by a scold of jays,
and I walk until death quiets behind me.

credits

from Miracle Strip, released August 31, 2022

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about

Matt Layne Birmingham, Alabama

Poet, librarian, raconteur; Matt Layne has been poking hornet's nests and looking under rocks since he was knee-high to a peanut peg.
I reckon you oughta check him out.