"Maybe we weren't meant to witness" by Melody Wang

magnolia’s cream-mottled cheek

marking yet another bygone era

plunked into the abyss as sorrow

burrows into our roots, unfurling

our prisons / our refuge, the delirious

journey into what we've come

to recognize as our shadow selves'

last fragments of a fallen season

that last slanted sunset reflected off the lake

hinting with its brilliance at what we simply

could not admit to ourselves. The expanding

distance between us we hide in and seek thereafter

Melody Wang currently resides in sunny Southern California with her dear husband and wishes it were autumn all year ‘round. She is a reader for Sledgehammer Lit and can be found on Twitter @MelodyOfMusings. Her debut collection of poetry "Night-blooming Cereus" is coming out on December 17, 2021 with Alien Buddha Press.