THE FEATURES
Once a month Punk Eek goes deep—like really deep. Our features rotate in genre between poetry, fiction, and creative nonfiction, offering an in-depth look into the world of our author with an interview that expands on their work. These features explore various interpretations and intersections taking place within nature: the personal, the political, the otherworldly.
A Voice in the Woods
“Come join me.”
For two nights in a row, Adam resisted her call.
It was a Sunday in August, and he stood by the open window in his second-floor bedroom, overlooking the forest behind his house. The past eight months, a FOR SALE sign had been staked in front of the forest. . . .
Six Poems
Birthing Age
I chip my front tooth in midwinter / chewing on chapped lips. Run my tongue / along the rough edge, feel a point, / an icicle. Cold rain’s coming down. / The day has only just begun and already /
my body has managed to hurt itself, / break off a little piece and swallow. . . .
washed in red light
Faint footsteps circled the tent. We were camped near Bonar Bridge in Scotland. Sticks snapped in the midst of a crooning whistle. Everything we owned leaned on a tree nearby.
For weeks we had been joking that night didn’t exist this far north, that the light lingered through the edges of each day, disrupted only by our sleep. . .
Saunterathon
The problem is that where once—thirteen days ago, let’s be specific!—I had a wall of glass to sit in front of every morning and view nature—birds and woodchucks and squirrels and so forth which I happily fed and, in summer months, watered—now I have a wall of books. . .
Avimancy
We enter the parking lot at a time when I would normally be considering bed. The summer sun is just setting behind the Oquirrh Mountains, taking color with it. Nearby, aspen flutter in the falling light.
“Do you think it’ll be too windy to see the owls?” I ask Michael. Trees bend on the mountains before me, and I’m thinking about how the winds on the Salt Creek Marsh near Logan keep the burrowing owls in their holes. But Michael is confident it won’t be a problem.