Liz Marlow: “Elegy for the Travel Companion”
ELEGY FOR THE TRAVEL COMPANION
A white shroud—hand stitched,
precise. Nearby, pins and threads
hanging out of needles’ heads
like rivers and roads on a page
in an atlas cover a small pillow.
I dusted memories left on
bookcases as knickknacks,
souvenirs crowded shelves
like streets during rush hour.
Water damage smeared words
illegible on postcards, but I still
recognized your small print, my
cursive. You, the tour guide,
me, the visitor stuck in front
of a museum on a Monday. Then I
listened for your voice. A whisper
hushed in my ear as a curator
draped sheets over the entire
sculpture exhibit. Nearby,
a gravedigger piled dirt
on the grass until all the graves
looked fresh. Where
might they have gone had they
lived an extra day? An explorer
opened a blank map, an atlas without
roads, an empty book. She shook it
open like a newspaper, expecting
it to reveal events and a date. Your
voice filled the shroud. Its off
whiteness clothed a cartographer
holding maps smelling of dust—I,
searching bookshelves for a yellowed
photo album filled with you.
Liz Marlow’s debut chapbook, They Become Stars, was the winner of the 2019 Slapering Hol Press Chapbook Competition. Other work appears in The Bitter Oleander, Greensboro Review, Minnesota Review, Tikkun, and elsewhere.