“Mise en Abyme,” a Poem by Lisa Russ Spaar

Despite furnaced trees
translating heaven, always

it comes, kneeling to nothing:
the angry, occult hoar of dread.

My service is to pay it
no mind, and pray that evil,

like cold, if it exists, is just
a bloodless absence of heat

or motion or capacity for change.
There’s a story within this story,

shackled at ankles by your fists—
wreathes, tetherings, call them

by any silvered, mirroring name.
Flames, they hold my feet to home.

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From Soul Cake by Lisa Russ Spaar. Copyright © 2026. Available from Persea Books.