Jessica Simonetti - When Winter Comes / Safe Haven

When Winter Comes

The Raven migrates to the river edge. 
Life and death meet, 
and life replenishes death 
as the bird fools the water. 
It has the Devil’s tongue; 
black, callused, and dry. 
And it knows the more it drinks, 
the less the swan will swim, 
the sparrow will navigate, 
the robin will bathe. 
It will lower the altitudes 
of the river salmon’s sky 
as it drinks away another cold, wet 
piece of the dome above the fish’s head. 
It will no longer look up to a sky of shooting stars, 
because the water bugs that can be deceived as constellations 
will hide from the Raven. 
Currents will stop 
with the collision of the Raven’s beak, 
and the lily pads will drown. 
But the bird from Haiti continues to sip 
with its abusive lips, 
until the river runs out 
or when cold covers its surface in glass 
and stardust falls. 






Safe Haven

When a black widow catches her prey, 
she wraps them in a netted silk. 
Pearl white with delicate fiber, the prey 
does not know it is being wound by Satan’s seamstress. 
It believes it is being clothed in a lace, 
a material only worn by the Queen. 
The lace’s pattern reminds the fly of snowflakes or 
dust falling off the aging stars. It thinks of strings 
on the Heavenly harp as it runs its fingers over the twine, 
without realizing the harp plays a lethal lullaby. 
This is how the Black Widow succeeds; 
because she wraps them in something beautiful.





Jessica Simonetti is currently a Psychology and Writing major at St. John Fisher College.  She's been writing since she was little, and hopes with each submission and new endeavor, she can get one step further in her literary pursuit.