Echo's Fear
PHILLIP POLEFRONE
She and I have never stood
together among trees
that have fallen,
leaf to leaf, to pieces.
In private we have known them,
read the tedious story of each
and corrected tiny elaborations.
We have been told that each
may once have been pursued
by the lust of gods
and we have always believed it.
Each graceful untruth
that papers the floor
we have watched grow wet with snow.
--
I understand these false
renditions of what is true.
I have been hearing for years
unreliable narrations of myths
in which silences
sub for a body
and love is a cavern
leveled at the unworthy.
I tell her
I have Echo’s fear
of empty houses
and she shows me
where breath begins.
We trade helpful names
for small, aimless prayers:
the tiny seed
beyond my body,
a tiny god
that answers when called,
appears between the trees.
