3rd place winner of the Streetlight 2017 Poetry Contest

Witness

It seemed an unlikely spot for a prophet, the annual library book sale
in a dim warehouse on a summer day, but there she was,
rocking side to side, the skirt of her lavender shirtwaist brushing pale shins
above white socks and sneakers. Her fingers toyed anxiously
with the clasp of her patent purse.

“God came to me when I was at the Dollar General,” she said to no one in particular.
“He told me to come down here to the book sale, He did.” Well I had grave doubts
about whether God troubled Himself with her reading list, but I’d been wrestling
that very question all day. Just this morning, after prayer for a sick friend,
I trailed into a downward spiral of whether He cares about my friend,
my dog, my garden — or now, her books.

She sure thought so. God came to the Dollar General,
whispered in her ear, and she obeyed. A pilgrim in certain faith,
she set off to wander in a wilderness of fiction, cookbooks
and bargain biographies, thence to emerge laden with literature,
wholly unencumbered by the weight of mysteries.

Priscilla Melchior is a career journalist who discovered a love for writing poetry two years ago. In 2011, she retired to the mountains of Virginia with her husband and three border collies. She has two grown sons and a grandson. Streetlight is proud to publish this emerging poet.