(Alexander Possingham/Unsplash)

Casually, a sleep

                  undoes it.

                  The limited,

lackluster

premonition

                  of my days

                  parts its dusty waves.

I wake

from drowning.

                  It is morning.

                  Lowering like wings

into the room,

a toneless

                  singing balms and balms.

                  It’s deep

as grief

and bitter

                  with relief

                  long sought.

Why did god not,

a moment sooner,

                  when I most needed,

                  come and feed

me?

Magda Andrews-Hoke lives in Philadelphia. She studied theology and the arts at the University of St. Andrews and was a 2019 recipient of the Frederick Mortimer Clapp Fellowship for Poetry.

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Published in the February 2024 issue: View Contents
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