Every Vesper

by Katherine Indermaur

Before bed I unbraid my long hair
Wash my face my hands in sand
Feel the stars emerge from me
Hot wasp stings     little pleas
Little points of asking    if I
Put my body in the way of blessing
Will you come to me      reach me
As the soldiers surround the lost
Mare bewildered by thirst and sun and days
In the desert          bewildered
By anything approaching eternity
Frightened as much by forgiveness
As she is by the end of her wanting

::

Katherine Indermaur is the author of I|I (Seneca Review Books, November 2022), winner of the 2022 Deborah Tall Lyric Essay Book Prize, and two chapbooks. She serves as an editor for Sugar House Review and is the winner of the Black Warrior Review 2019 Poetry Contest and the 2018 Academy of American Poets Prize. Her writing has appeared or is forthcoming in Coast|noCoast, Ecotone, Frontier Poetry, Ninth Letter, the Normal School, and elsewhere. She holds an MFA from Colorado State University and lives within sight of the Rocky Mountains.

Image: Roger Lipera