Harrowing Nightwatch by Gretchen Tessmer

29 lines
Issue 2 (Spring/Summer 2023)

after the graveside vigil, he rose up

from damp, algae-like weeds
speaking sworn oaths
and promises that he could no longer keep

I’ll love you forever, I’ll stay with you always

but with my own two eyes—wide
and a little wary
I watched
as he staked

a wooden cross on a silver fitting
said to hell with murk and gloomy epitaphs
he wrestled my demons
then brewed us some tea

I was dry-eyed now, too charmed
to notice my nose was bleeding

kneeling in loose dirt
and newly planted lilies

lonely

(of course I was lonely)

so I took the drink
he offered me—
it tasted like pine needles
nettles and nightcrawlers

but I kept it down, stubbornly
to waste away the eerie
witching hour

to spend a little more time in your company

and keep me sharp
for a new mourning

Gretchen Tessmer is a writer based in the U.S./Canadian borderlands. She writes both short fiction and poetry, but if the hostile AI/alien overlords ever force her to choose between the two, it's poetry. By a red wheelbarrow, glazed with rainwater and filled to the brim with pretty verses. Her work has found homes in many venues, including Nature, Strange Horizons, Beneath Ceaseless Skies and Fantasy & Science Fiction.
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