i.
North of here lies a hollow
in the earth,
your old sleeping-place.
Your first memory, that space—
moss rolled into pillows
time a faraway
trickle of water.
Deep breaths, dark air growing
around you—gently
tracing night
in the spaces between
your fingers, in the caverns
of your eyelids.
The pebbles you collected,
for building the places you found
in your dreams—
morphing towers, winding paths—
uninhabited cities, left
in the wake of bare footsteps,
the bats whispering soft
concave songs
through their streets.
ii.
He filled your lap with pearls
when you first met—a startle
of chattering white, a sudden cascade
of light, overflowing
from your palms. Your eyes were wide.
Your hands, full.
They trembled—perhaps because
you thought you held the teeth
of his foes, or perhaps only from
the weight. And even afterwards
you couldn’t really understand,
what reason there would be
to make a gift
of the sufferings of small,
dreamless shells.
But his eyes were stormy pools,
deep and strange and
shining,
and for that, you told
yourself, keep still.
Look! he cried,
how the moon-beads gleam
in the gold off the waves!
iii.
You remember this—
The lee of a rock that stood
alone, against sun and wind.
Breathless laughter. Taking shelter
from creatures with no names.
The shadows of crabs,
wispy sketches in the sand.
A song like the throbbing
of the tide. Slow turns,
fingers twining, heartbeats
in the undertow.
The scoop of a bone,
and how smooth, how easy it was
to fill.
Salt on tongue,
warmth beneath skin.
A gull winging away
over the sound.
Somewhere overhead, lost to the moment—
the faint echo of a lightless place.
iv.
When you were a child, sometimes
you stood where the walls curved
towards eternity, and spoke
to the silence.
You knew well what it was
to let words go
and have them drift back only
as mouthings, as the outlines
of what they had gently folded around
where your gaze could not wander.
That was enough.
It had to be.
v.
He spoke often of how beautiful
your hair was—like the long
sea-grass, snaking
round the mouth of his palace,
in the green canyons below.
On warm nights, you lay on the shore
and he guided your hand
towards where,
when the moon drew back the tide,
a spire broke the surface.
You will never have to worry again. I know
we will be happy there, and after all—
one kind of darkness is very much
like another.
Words that lapped, ceaseless,
at the edges of your waking.
You remember this—
Silver light
across a bedroom floor.
Silk sleeves, tucked into
each other like lovers.
Wingbeats of a curtain, descending
upon your throat.
The clockwork rise and fall of a chest, the ocean,
a cocoon of twined breaths and a binding of arms and here
you were, always warm and safe and so
near.
vi.
One day, you tried to stack the pearls and make a tower.
They were too smooth to build with. They rolled onto the floor
and lay there, quivering.
The stones cried out
in your bones.
vii.
He has already gone.
Now you move shiftless, shift-
less, through the hallways,
etching roads
in the dust on the windowsill, carving
ruts in the wood
of the walls. You do not want
for company—you have
the taut seams
of close-fitting tunics,
the forgotten lips of swollen
teacups.
Lute strings, bloated
with music, aching
to be heard.
The ghosts, Au Co,
have left this place—
for houses less
haunted, for thinner
sky.
So do this now.
viii.
Take the lute by the neck.
Loosen the strings.
Let the notes
run off them
as beads of rain.
Swirl the cups
and watch
as what has settled
at the bottom
rises,
to cloud the surface.
Find a knife
and cut through
the threads.
Hear the cloth sigh
as it opens,
as the stitches forget
their purpose.
Then pour it all—
elegies, dead leaves in water,
memories of being worn—
into the sea
until your hands
are hollow. North of here
is home. Do not worry—
you will never
have to worry
again.
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Stefani Tran is a Sophomore BFA Creative Writing student. This literary piece was previously published in Heights (LX Folio SY 2012-2013).
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