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Ariadne
On the Loss of Theseus
Amanda Auchter
This is the pulse that sheers
through my morning hour—
the dull cry of gulls who pause
on the beach and pick through
the dregs of low tide for remains
left by the desertion of the sea.
I stumble into the pools
of your tracks along the smooth
mouth of shoreline. You were here,
leaving these deep pockets among
jags of shells and driftwood.
The wall of green parts and tumbles.
The sea is an oracle, a looking-glass
that holds the last half-wave
of your sails. The swells point
upward, tipping and rocking
along the storm-tossed,
wind-tossed waves. I call,
wait for my echoes
to branch outward. The low
keen of my voice is hardened
and silenced by the horizon
that pulls at you, tugs you
toward its hazy curve.
This is the arc that I hold onto:
the last relic of you that surges
through the fiery lunge
of the Eastern sky. At last, you
pierce the bright cornea of the sun.
I uncurl with the black ribbons
of clouds that trail and spin
after you, chase down the rough
wake of your absence.
My landscape falls silent.
Amanda Auchter currently works as the editor of
Pebble Lake Review. Her writing has appeared or is
forthcoming in Antietam Review, Blue Unicorn, The
Chaffin Journal, The Homestead Review, Mad Poets
Review, Pennsylvania English, Plum Ruby Review, Willow
Review, Writer's Digest Year's Best Writing 2003, and
others. She is the recipient of the 2004 Howard Moss
Poetry Prize and won third prize in the 2003 Writer's
Digest Writing Competition for memoir/personal essay.
At present, she is completing a degree in creative
writing at the University of Houston.
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