To My Echo, Dust

By Jessica Claire Bennish

Listen to her read here: To My Echo, Dust

To the great big cave without a face,
scrawled in red chalk all
childlike
a reminder
8 17 on this first day of June.
.there is a stillness so loud
it screams through the gray.
like an old screen door
bam/whoosh/ with the wind.
bird shadows and domestic cats turn wild on new moons.
.everything is so fresh, we seek another word for “new”
dusk is a place holier than holy
.it is change before change become change.
one foot here. the other there.
it is all the purity and truth of the unknown.
.it is all the kisses imagined
.it is shadows.

it is confetti. and scatter. some waste. but mostly pretty.
it is charades. it is piñatas. it is shadows.
it is sound being made simply to be heard.
the horn so loud it moves past
deafness
until your senses
still
and it is then you know
the reddest of reds
the beautiest of beauties
the lullaby your mother sang you as you swam like some
small sea thing in her womb
it is then you know
most everything