Melody

by Allen Weber
FreeWrights Peer Review
Third Place, November 2011
Judged by Nathalie Handal


Providence held her to orchard paths, dropped a match
in that house where nobody lived. Having stayed five years
a ghost, only a Unitarian choir would suffer her leaving.

Imagining gravel streams, asphalt rivers, she waded
into the depot for any passage her legacy might afford.
Across the platform, a gust cartwheeled my lyrics, across

the yellow line, past a mandolin case—pretty at her feet.
No coquette, she looked away to smooth her fluttering
dress—robin-egg blue—just so, by God, we never met.


Here, the melody comes from a deep voice. And all we can do is listen, and allow the lines to take us to where melodies usually don’t. --Nathalie Handal