Ghost Choir

What injures the hive injures the bee, says Marcus Aurelius. I say

not wanting to hurt another, this late, should maybe more than

count, still, as a form of love. Be wild. Bewilder. Not that they

hadn’t, of course, known unkindnesses, and been themselves

unkind. When the willow’s leaves, back again, unfold all along

their branches, the branches routinely in turn brushing then lifting

away from the pond’s face, it’s too late. Last night I doubted as I’ve

not doubted myself in years: knowing a thing seemed worthless

next to knowing the difference between many things, the fox from

the hounds, persuasion from the trust required to fall asleep beside

a stranger; who I am, and how I treated you, and how you feel. So

that it almost seemed they’d either forgotten or agreed without

saying so to pretend they had. Did you know there’s an actual plant

called honesty, for its seedpods, how you can see straight through?

Though they’d been told the entire grove would die eventually, they

refused to believe it. The face in sleep, like a wish wasted. To the wings

at first a slight unsteadiness; then barely any. What if forgetting’s not

like that—instead, stampeding, panicked, just a ghost choir: of legends,

and rumors, of the myths forged from memory—what’s true, and isn’t—

that we make of ourselves and, even worse, of others. Not the all-but-

muscular ache, the inner sweep of woundedness; no. Not tonight. Say

the part again about the bluer flower, black at the edges. I’ve always

loved that part. Skull of an ox, from which a smattering of stars

keeps rising. How they decided never to use surrender as a word again.