guest, deep woods

Maria Zoccola

she/her

when i ate the sun

i traded my lungs

for two fishhooks

and a tongue made of ash.

i hold my teeth

at the meat of your throat

and the voices of the house

rise up in song:

hearth and downpour,

settling beams,

the hunter in my chest—

furred and sinewed,

over and over

calling its name.

Maria Zoccola is a poet and writer from Memphis, Tennessee. Her work has previously appeared in The Atlantic, Ploughshares, Kenyon Review, The Sewanee Review, and elsewhere, and has received a special mention for the Pushcart Prize. Her debut poetry collection, Helen of Troy, 1993 (Scribner, 2025), was a New York Times Editors’ Choice pick and was named a best book of the year by The New Yorker and NPR.