Written by Regan Chern
A Bottle Holds Notes/Orpheus
I am a stone skipping your surface,
Lives colliding to a close: kiss, kiss,
sink.
While you survive,
Down, I go
on an opposing line.
Some ships bound to give in.
No music beneath,
Bubbled memories lift,
The name remains:
Orpheus
Orpheus
Orphe—
The rift takes us.
me from you.
I recline on seagrass,
become a stone reef,
a garden fixture,
a closed museum.
A poster papered over,
an ear, emptied.
a face on a train,
an instrument,
without strings.
A diver loves a bottle,
Wants it—drops it.
Can’t be retrieved.
Whale song as it falls.
Bottle holds the notes,
All it can contain.
Willow
You shake out your wind-thrown things,
Cast them over her buried lips,
And from a distance,
Where many hands meet and part,
She becomes,
She falls into shards.
I’d play her music,
If this was her dancing.
Willow, you’ll have only my dirges.
I’ll go to death in your waters,
Just for a glimpse⎯
You pull me out from under.
For this glimpse, I had her⎯
I lost her,
twice over.
Willow, our witness,
Remember me through Eurydice:
Each wax-leaf, be her hair on my skin,
Each twig, be her finger I could ring.
Be her voice, be her mind,
She was citrus,
Without a rind.
I trace your roots,
They are the frayed threads,
Of a marriage bed, stolen and shred.
Nothing owed to my willow,
But I tell you my sorrow freely.
I grip your limbs; the wind, it rips,
And I’m left, again, empty-handed.
Author Bio:
Regan is a Brisbane/Meanjin-based writer in the final semester of his Bachelor of Fine Arts (Creative Writing) degree. You can find his work published in ScratchThat magazine, encompassing everything from poetry, memoir, fiction, audiobooks, and artworks. He is now a member of ScratchThat’s Editorial Board. He also tutors children from pre-Kindergarten up to Year 12. When he is not working, you will most likely find him with his two cats or hiding behind a mountain of plates from his favourite (and secret) sushi joint.
If you’d like to get into contact with him, please do so through his Instagram page @regancchern. He has also started a book club named the Lemon Lime Readers (@lemonlimereaders), which is currently seeking new members… please…