When I saw the elk
would not arrive, no matter
how long I waited,
I renounced my faith
in dusk. Not that it wasn’t
happening, but that it was
a hunger I chose—
one I knew all along
contained too much
expectation. This was a flash-
light dropped in the scrub.
But damn if I didn’t get
down on my knees
to scrabble for it
among night’s fluid herds.
Katharine Rauk‘s full-length collection of poems will be published by Tinderbox Editions in 2016. She is the author of the chapbook Basil (Black Lawrence Press) and her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Pleaides, DIAGRAM, Harvard Review, Best of the Net, Hobart, and elsewhere. She reviews books for SCOUT and teaches at North Hennepin Community College.