William Welch

Say Goodbye, Catullus,
to the Shores of Asia Minor *

Peregrinator, passing through small towns,
passing through solitude, what will you remember
about today? Even if you write a few notes

in your book, or record a memo—even if
you assign a room for this quiet place
in that house where you keep memory in order,

your green is not the green of new leaves.
Your recollection of the scent of pine
is imperfect, you discover whenever you break

the boughs of an evergreen. Though somehow when
you recognize that odor, you say—it could be nothing
else. And looking across the river, you see

strange smoke billowing, ragged, dense in spots,
in others a thin discoloration—and call it
without hesitation—green. But you envy the ability

of water to take the shoreline and sky into itself
completely, or only embellished with a few ripples
where midges test the difference between the sky

above and sky below. To go five years without seeing
a face, to go ten—are you sure you can
recognize him? You hope that as with these

details, with odors only occurring in one place,
with colors observed just once a year,
you will know—you will answer

that is my brother—that is his face—
without thinking, without second-guessing
the glimpse beneath the shroud.

And you will remember—already,
you’re preparing yourself—that face
as it was one afternoon

when he pushed you into the current
from the light skiff in which he floated,
beautiful with anger, his arms glistening—

his face like a lily in the middle of a pond,
everything made deeper-seeming by him,
by the weight of his presence. You will remember

his expression once he realized what he had done.

* The unofficial title of a painting by Cy Twombly
housed at the Menil Collection, Houston, TX.

William Welch lives in Utica, NY where he works as a registered nurse. His work has appeared in various journals, most recently in Nine Mile, Rust+Moth, Hole in the Head Review, and Stone Canoe. New work is forthcoming in The Healing Muse and The Comstock Review. He edits Doubly Mad for The Other Side of Utica (doublymad.org).