Lucy Western

Eurydice

And I stood at the foot

            of a tall staircase

that curled like a

            letter into the dark

that curled like a lock

            of hair around the

dark and made it

            known. Had I known

what words were spoken

            then, since my eyes

were weapons I had

            learned to lock away     

I spoke from shadow

            thick and real as a held

blanket, thick and

            real as breath. It wasn’t 

my body, and each

            step hurt. I told you;

I told you; since my

            eyes were a thicket

of arrows I had learned

            to point at the sky

and each step hurt

            as though through

sunlight. At the peak

            something waited

to be held, but it wasn’t

            my body, and each step

curled like a command

            out into the dark—don’t.

Lucy Western is a middle school Latin teacher in Charlottesville, Virginia and has previously published work in New York Quarterly and 3rd Wednesday.