poetry

Eurydice
Jeannine M. Pitas

I followed you barefoot on pavement just as I promised I would.

They say you looked back but you never did.

I stooped to pick up the tears you shed and placed them in my own eyes

I listened as you played your lyre and sang in the meadows — first in sad solitude, mourning for me

later in village squares where the people set down their hammers and brooms and gathered around you.

I listened as she came to share your melodies; My own voice sang along even as the weeds grew in my throat, as the water lilies bloomed over my lips so that my songs would not reach you

Still I stayed close as my body transformed into the river that gazed upon the house you built without me

the hearth where you sit, wife and children around you floating like ghosts on your songs

Won’t you even look up if I come to the door if I stand and sing on the threshold?

Won’t you even notice when the wind rips the roots from this house? When the earth rises up and we both vanish for good?

I am a University of Toronto graduate student in comparative literature and my writing has been published online by Fresh Yarn, Ghoti, Boxcar Poetry Review and Wild Goose Poetry Review.