by L. Acadia
Disappearing
To disappear into foliage like any number of animals.
The grizzly, for example. Though broad for winter,
her silver-tipped shoulders dissolve into the sedge.
How wild creatures blend with the edges of terrain,
as if matter itself gives way, and one thing becomes another.
The fox in full run along the pasture fence is fox one minute,
grasses the next, then fox again, flashing red flank.
There are better ways to distance than go completely dark.
I explain to my children that friendships evolve, but what
I mean is that many don’t. Sometimes our bodies slip
by each other like shadows lengthening, and what looks
like a wolf howling without sound is just a hand
cast on a wall, opening, closing, until the light goes out.
And ventriloquists never shout—have you noticed?
There’s an art to throwing a voice across a room or valley,
or having it return in echo from cavern or canyon
where shadows loom oddly tall. Unrecognizable
is how we may seem to each other, narrow shoulders,
legs like stilts, as we topple clumsily through underbrush
metaphorically or otherwise. The trick is to keep
something visible every once in a while, a hand raised
or eye open, follow each other to the tree line,
find a clearing, lie down, backs to the ground,
look up, see how leaves circle the blue and canopy
us, primed to fall like the truth my children already
know, that people disappear for good every day.
Elinor Ann Walker holds a Ph.D. in English from the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill and teaches academic writing at University of Maryland Global Campus. Her recent work is featured or forthcoming in Black Bough Poetry, Gone Lawn, Nimrod International Journal, Northwest Review, Pidgeonholes, Plant-Human Quarterly, The Rappahannock Review, Ruby, The Southern Review, Whale Road Review, Willawaw Journal, and Wordpeace. A Best Microfiction and Best of the Net nominee, she lives with her husband and two dogs, is the mother of two young adult sons, and prefers to write outside. Find her online at https://elinorannwalker.com and on Twitter @elinorann_poet.
L. Acadia is a lit professor at National Taiwan University, a dog pillow at home, and otherwise searching Taipei for ghosts and vegan treats. L. has a PhD from Berkeley and creative work published or forthcoming in Autostraddle, The Dodge, Lothlorian Poetry Journal, Neologism Poetry Journal, Neon Door, Subterranean Blue Poetry, and Typehouse Magazine. Twitter and Instagram: @acadialogue.