Mitchell Untch
Epitaph
“Earth, isn’t that what you want: to arise within us invisible? Isn’t your dream to be wholly invisible someday?” –Rilke
“Earth, isn’t that what you want: to arise within us invisible? Isn’t your dream to be wholly invisible someday?” –Rilke
you moved, the swath of sheets wrapped around you became another piece of clothing still fortunate to wear you, to turn as your leaf-torn body turned, your torso, your hips, the scalloped bones of your chest, the clasped hands, the ear’s taut drum where words, my words, lingered and strayed sometimes singing the way birds sing their quiet happiness for having flight, singing for the earth that gives back what it takes, the eye’s bright oracle singing, the harpsichord of the heart singing until emptied of desire, if only I could see you in the shape I once saw you, carved from the brightest part of a stone, your shadow woven silk unraveling inside the doorway,
your shadow grown from your shoulders like wings after the sun’s fury, like water dripping down a window, the cloud’s departure leaving only your beauty to be seen, remembered, if only I could forget this apparition, this belief that still frightens me outside in the yard where you now reside inside the open mouths of flowers, inside trees that spin with your thoughts, inside leaves that fall to the ground like words unuttered, because I cannot go where you are, where your breath dries, where your bones root, because if I saw you now I could not move, could not steady my hand on the door, turn the knob with my fingers, could not feel it without feeling your
hand’s warmth, that flooding gesture, because if I remember the truth and I wake and move and allow myself to feel I will feel, because if I lie with my eyes closed and find that you are still here, still the wind’s song turning in the dark, still your mouth opening mine, opening me, the handle, the door, the ceiling, the wall, still looking each summer for your car to turn up the driveway, for the sun to make way for your body, to burn a bright hole in the air, then I will know that the world is wrong.
Mitchell Untch is an emerging writer. Partial publications include Beloit Poetry Journal; Poet Lore; North American Review; Confrontation; Nimrod Intl; Natural Bridge; Owen Wister; Solo Novo; Knockout: Baltimore Review; Lake Effect; The Catamaran Reader; Grey Sparrow; Illuminations; Tusculum Review; Telluride Institute, West Trade Review, among others. Two Time Pushcart Nominee.
your shadow grown from your shoulders like wings after the sun’s fury, like water dripping down a window, the cloud’s departure leaving only your beauty to be seen, remembered, if only I could forget this apparition, this belief that still frightens me outside in the yard where you now reside inside the open mouths of flowers, inside trees that spin with your thoughts, inside leaves that fall to the ground like words unuttered, because I cannot go where you are, where your breath dries, where your bones root, because if I saw you now I could not move, could not steady my hand on the door, turn the knob with my fingers, could not feel it without feeling your
hand’s warmth, that flooding gesture, because if I remember the truth and I wake and move and allow myself to feel I will feel, because if I lie with my eyes closed and find that you are still here, still the wind’s song turning in the dark, still your mouth opening mine, opening me, the handle, the door, the ceiling, the wall, still looking each summer for your car to turn up the driveway, for the sun to make way for your body, to burn a bright hole in the air, then I will know that the world is wrong.
Mitchell Untch is an emerging writer. Partial publications include Beloit Poetry Journal; Poet Lore; North American Review; Confrontation; Nimrod Intl; Natural Bridge; Owen Wister; Solo Novo; Knockout: Baltimore Review; Lake Effect; The Catamaran Reader; Grey Sparrow; Illuminations; Tusculum Review; Telluride Institute, West Trade Review, among others. Two Time Pushcart Nominee.