Laura’s solitude had texture and it was palpable
like a piece of fabric corseting her body.
She learnt to be a moth amongst foxgloves
whose opium grew sweeter every day.

“Dear Moon, I am more moth than I am maiden —
underworld has been my cocoon where I question Hades
about the abduction of Persephone.
And he questions me back: ‘Do you wish my withered majesty?’

I have the witch’s hand, my sister Moon,
which has premonitions of the other side of the coin.
One glimpse was enough to turn the flesh into stone
of those I never left behind.”

Laura became a full moth, stout-hearted,
over the foxgloves whose toxin waned sun by sun.
Her chrysalis blossomed white myosotis sylvatica

Raquel Dionísio Abrantes is a writer from Portugal. She has a Bachelor's Degree and a Master’s Degree in Cinema from Universidade da Beira Interior. Raquel gave a Master Class in Writing of Scripts about Narrative Structure. Her writing has appeared on Write or Die Tribe, Better Than Starbucks, The Pangolin Review, New Hand Lab, Fleas on the Dog and The Fictional Café. She writes for Read Poetry and O Cipreste. More about her work can be found on Instagram, @woodland.poem.