From the Collection Soul Cake 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. __________________________________ From Soul Cake by Lisa Russ Spaar. Copyright © 2026. Available from Persea Books. Lisa Russ Spaar Lisa Russ Spaar is the author/editor of fourteen books, most recently Madrigalia: New & Selected Poems (Persea Books, 2021) and a debut novel, Paradise Close (Persea Books; 2022; paperback 2025). A new collection of poems, Soul Cake (Persea Books) will appear on May 5, 2026.…