My Night a Prayer

by Arielle Walters

And I am left alone. Too still and stark
These naked boughs against the hillside thrown,
Too deep these shades for eyes to share. Alone—
The forms I loved now distant in the dark.
Unblinking, still, Orion guards my berm.
No cloak but dew around my shoulders strewn,
No sound but dirge to haunt the midnight moon—
Then fall of footstep, imminent and firm.

One grasp—and I am hoisted to my feet,
Suffused with surging nerve, I know not how.
Arm locked in arm, and sweated brow on brow,
Bent knee where straining knee and gravel meet.

What Face is this beneath a dusky sky?
Whose is the Hand that presses on my thigh?

A writer, seamstress, and editor, Arielle likes to watch various parts come together to make an appealing whole.

Photography by Kenneth Godoy