Melody of the Lost Echo

We met on a river

bound to only give her

love to the Sea.

Echo would sing

bittersweet ballads

about a nymph who granted

wishes to destined few,

and, warmly, I knew

my unspoken desire

had already

been answered

by the creaturely woman

who found more than

a stray princess

lost in the swaying rapids.

She didn’t mourn my curse

nor did I dread hers—

a mermaid, bound to the waters,

and her truehearted lover,

who wouldn’t live longer

than another spring.

I wondered how many

before had known tragedy

like ours, always parting

like the unbelonging

muses.

The best of it

is still woven

within the embankment

cradling our once neglected

bodies on those evenings

when the only warmth we

longed for

was each other

and the slow lull

of the river’s tide, pulling

toward the misty reefs,

promising

salvation if we were brave

enough to face

the currents where many before

had misplaced their hearts.

The worst of it was buried

on the beach where the queen

and her gulls confessed,

“She hasn’t resurfaced,”

and I learned

that my beloved, who once yearned

for nothing more than steady

feet,

was forsaken

on her frenzied mission

to discover a medicine

that could cure my affliction.

The charm of an everlasting

pearl may return stolen time,

but a renewed life

without Echo

was a sickness that had no

remedy.

What were we

if not entwined in the

chaos of cruel destinies?

“Pirates,”

a harrowed gull guessed,

and a piece of my soul sank

like an anchor

into the golden grains of glass.

I looked back

at the mourning queen

for clarity.

She nodded in agreement

with her winged captain,

and I knew, like a fledgling

peering from a towering tree,

eager to take flight

despite the daunting height,

there was only

one thing

left to do.

“I need a crew,”

I beseeched the queen,

who still faithfully

waited on the sands for her ghost

to visit during lonely

nights. She gestured

with waterlogged and withered

fingers east toward the nearest port,

bestowing a sand dollar

upon my palm that craved only

a tender hold, long harbored in memories.

“This will grant you passage,”

she insisted

when I pressed my fingertips gently

around the brittle currency.

On the open Sea,

with nothing

to lose but waning

days, I turned my ear toward

the vacant waters

and listened for

her echoing

melody.