Snail Funeral

 

Between tulip and ryegrass

there is a freshly dug grave

I might be five, or four

black soil beneath my fingernails

loss in the hollows of my footprints

 

Its viscous body is buried in a bottle cap coffin

offered to the earth under flower beds

opalescent snail shells fragmented between toes

and left to heal beneath swollen mounds

 

Two weeks later

after my eyes have dried

and my feet have been rinsed clean

I pry it open again in commiserate sunlight

just to see if heaven is real

 

Because I am five

and God is far

but I hope

not so far for a snail

 

Hannah Voteur

Hannah (she/her) is a writer, poet, and editor currently working in publishing in NYC as an operations associate. She has loved fiction and stories for as long as she can remember, particularly gothic and evocative literary pieces. She earned her Master’s in Linguistics from Boston University in 2022 and her Master’s in English Language and Literature from the University of Sheffield in 2023. When she doesn’t have her nose in a book, she is most likely baking lemon bars, daydreaming about moving into a cat-friendly apartment, or seeking out new hole-in-the-wall bookstores in her neighborhood.