Vespers

Evening arrives
on the pinnacles
of eucalyptus

they take flight from high perches
wingspans shift
and catch currents

hungry
not hunting
scanning for carrion

*

every morning
he reads them
the obituaries

up and down
he feathers the columns
seeking something familiar

now stage four eats him
yet he still reads
waits for evening

Laura King holds a Master of Divinity degree from Union Theological Seminary in New York City and is in the MFA program for Creative Writing at Rainier Writing Workshop in Tacoma, Washington. Her work has appeared in Evening Street Review, Hollins Critic, The Los Angeles Times, Modern Haiku, Neologism Poetry Journal, Ponder Review, The Opiate, Slant: A Journal of Poetry, Whimperbang, and Wrath-Bearing Tree. She lives in Sacramento, California, where she is a pecan farmer and a hospital chaplain.