after Brouwer’s “La Huida de los Amantes por el Valle de los Ecos” for classical guitar
To turn back at the hill, or wall—
all dogs will come home.
all sons arrive, their pockets torn.
A mirror: Narcissus drinks
blue ink from the stream
and cannot leave. I love you
I love you since to imitate
is a pattern learned, call for
yes again: a voice is made
by doubling. Lungs lift
against the chord
box, stir its twins of fold.
Antigoni Goni’s hands
butterfly across the fretboard,
neck where strings pull
like latitude through dark.
In her song, the lovers flee—
horses’ hooves accelerate
down to the valley—and before
they are caught, they call out.
Elizabeth Lindsey Rogers is the author of two poetry collections, The Tilt Torn Away from the Seasons (Acre Books, 2020) and Chord Box (University of Arkansas Press, 2013), as well as Miss Southeast: Essays (Northwestern University Press, 2024). Her work has appeared in Poetry, Guernica, AGNI, The Missouri Review, Beloit Poetry Journal, The Best American Nonrequired Reading, Asheville Poetry Review, Comstock Review, Chautauqua Literary Journal, StorySouth, Poetry Daily, The Best American Travel Writing, and elsewhere. A former Kenyon Review Fellow, she is assistant professor of creative writing at Oberlin College, where she leads the Writers in the Schools Program. She lives in Oberlin with her wife and two children. (updated 10/2024)