oh midnight woods which press palms

to the planes of my face, and oh cosmos wheeling

over my miniature sky, curved velvet overhead. oh morel

who grows in the leaf litter, oh downy bed shed

to the forest floor, sucking mud caressing ankles

and, soon, body. oh late hour purpling the cradle

of eye sockets, oh night raining cool from the treetops.

oh dissolving cobwebs in my hair,

disintegrating silver lit silver, pulled apart

at each tense intersection, dragged to string, to air,

to oblivion. oh darkling dusk and liminal lilt,

chorus of frogs chirping high in night fallen

over fallen body, oh shallowing breath.

oh headstone clouds standing vigil,

towering over the soft dip of forest floor, cradle

for the withering crab apple of my body dropped

from the webbing branches, oh glittering star

peering into the peaks of my thinning chest.

oh veneration, oh prayer on lips

whisper-thin and cracking, hymn chanted and echoed

in the vault of silken pitch overhead, ceiling arched,

architecture clouding eyes and more and mind.

oh charm of the woods, oh stillness

as it settles into frozen limbs,

oh patience of the night.

oh dew as the sun breaks the horizon, oh damp

settling over, drops on my eyelashes like feathers.

oh revelation.

Leah Tuckwiller (she/her) is a poet from southern West Virginia, and is pursuing an MFA at the University of Baltimore. Her work has appeared in Final Girl Bulletin Board, and you can find her either on twitter @leafreids or out in the woods, marveling at the Appalachian mountains even after living among them this whole time.