Echoes

“The past is never dead. It isn’t even past.”—William Faulkner, Requiem for a Nun

By Harper Lewis Published 10 months ago • 1 min read

Grandaddy, me, my sister, Nana, 1978 or1979

I carry my dead with me everywhere I go.

Their voices don’t fade, they speak, clear as a bell,

like when my aunt told me to get my river house and we saw it that day, made an aggressive offer, and live in it now.

Or my dad, saying “I wouldn’t if I were you” when I think I can get away with something.

Grandaddy telling me he’s never heard of Aunt Lanta but knows Uncle Lanta when I mispronounce Atlanta.

Gloria ordering a cocktail

And you, even though you’re not dead. I still see you standing there, promising to catch me, swearing you won’t let me fall.

I still feel all of it.

Intrusive rhyme bothers me, except as a weapon.

Intertextuality is my passion.

Formalist/ New Critical are my guiding theories.

My words are mine, not a robot’s.

MA English literature, CofC

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