These Are Not Your Stories Anymore
Poem - by Jessica Cho
I heard your voice as I walked home tonight,
rising between the shadows
in motes of dust, caught in scraps of light
between the branches, golden and resplendent,
so unlike you, in your gown of moss
and soft silt, draped in pine boughs
and damp leaves, murmured colours;
a treaty between autumn and spring.
You called my name in the hum of cicadas
and the chuckle of crows who had told
and retold this jest a thousand times over.
For a moment your hand slipped into mine,
fingers worn and woven, a touch of shadow
like velvet and bone. But when I looked up,
there was nothing to see except
the spaces between the trees
that hummed with the absence of you.
I heard you tapping on my window,
a skeleton branch goaded by the wind.
You asked me to come to you by moonlight,
not the brilliant perspicuity of day
that brings an end to make-believe.
You whispered to me through the glass,
of worlds you saw through the copper curtain,
the pennies on your eyes,
but the stories of the living cannot be told
in errant breezes, by tongues stopped
with mouthfuls of ash.
Go home, my love, please take
your moon and dust and tappings and trappings
and seek contentment elsewhere.
Find new bedfellows among the loam,
learn new songs for the echo of your voice
and leave your shadow at the door.