Compline

By: Melissa King

Shade snakes

a dark river, one

sunflower tall

the hill beside,

mercy settling

where body holds it

between two deer

and asphalt

elbow wrinkles

where sun is

obstructed.

I see better.

Above fallen

Lord’s candles,

archer’s bow

in the sky pulls

an early storm,

storytelling to scrape

meaning against horizon’s

indigo oil painting

deep boundaries

divide the line

where I will

and won’t go walking

alone.

I know better. 

Clouds drag

fingerprints wrung,

raisined. Raven

pecks shameless

in a mudhole holding

under rain-bright wings,

side-eye all

I’ve dropped

into the creek, 

dissolving, I have

the humid skin

to touch him

today.

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Melissa King is an anthropologist, educator, and poet curious about relationality, about edges and thresholds where discernment and transformation are met. Her poetic work emerged during ethnographic fieldwork as a form of witnessing and reimagining. She works in higher education and is often found wandering the mountain trails of Southern California.