Stygian asphalt water
Reflects the flickering sky
Elapse the tender root
No matter how you try
We’re so much older now
Yet on a wet December night
Our souls grow to allow
Alleviate and invite
Grief like silver mercury
Debt gone long unpaid
Hope for health and company
In the new life we have made
Deeper now we wander
Into the shadow of the woods
Hesitate, stand, temporize
To ponder if we should
Deviate from the path
A voice will ask your name
Ignore its wretched query
Unless you seek to play its game
So far inside the thicket
The air around us black
Now there’s no escape.
Now there’s no way back.
The voice screams for my name
Poignant and wrought with fear
I run into the dead of night
To no wisdom I adhere
Rambling through the snow
Desperate for your voice
Now I remember the beach.
Now I remember your choice.
The darkness falls around me
The light on the asphalt flares
So suddenly I’m woken wiser
Then, to all the night’s affairs.
Sean King, ’24