Wolpertinger

by Maximiliane Donicht Issue: Spring 2018 
Come sprinkle salt
on my twitching tail,  
dear hunter,

when the barks are kissed
blue, a candle
in your hair. 

Veiled in susurrus, I balance
on the bottleneck
of being 

barely sit in the blurry skirts
of apricity, in the red braids
of root.

I have waited
all this time for you
to find me.

I have waited,
brooding an egg you call
the observable universe,

in a place you call
the natural world.
I have felt you 

ripen beneath the concave
of your cinder shell, scrunching 

up against it,
an eager tiny life.

I have waited
for you to come,
dear hunter.

Come bury
your knife.

Maximiliane Donicht

Maximiliane Donicht is from Munich, Germany, and is the author of Bees of the Invisible (Finishing Line Press). She once worked as a pastry chef in Paris, practiced classical Japanese swordsmanship in New York, and now lives in Taipei where she eats an ungodly amount of purple sweet potatoes. She earned her BFA in Comparative Literature and the Creative Arts with a minor in Psychology at the American University of Paris and holds an MFA in Poetry and Literary Translation from Columbia University. Her poetry has appeared in The London Journal of Fiction, Bone Bouquet, and Paris/Atlantic. Her translations have been published online at The Grief Diaries, Columbia Journal online, and are forthcoming in Gulf Coast Magazine. Her translation of Prof. Dr. Thomas Höllmann's book, The Chinese Script, was published by Columbia University Press.

Spring 2018