Still Listening for Them

By Phil Goldstein

My parents often let me
wander amid the big bluestem &
wild bergamot as the sun drizzled
over our windswept all.

I was only eight, but
they wanted me to know
nature, myself, the dance between.
Besides, there was no one

around for miles to ever
threaten, lurk or look.
I would make my way
to the brook, catching

the whispers & waiting
for their echoes to flow
back around, even if it
took years to hear them again.

They whispered that I’d ache
for the mountains. Promised I’d love
deeply. Whispered I would know
when it was time to leave.

When I was fourteen I laid
down in a field of bloodroot
& amethyst shooting stars, writing
my first poems. 

The whispers wound through
our fields and the prairie, matching
the rhythm of this place, & me in it.
I’m still waiting for the echo. 

---

Phil Goldstein’s debut poetry collection, How to Bury a Boy at Sea, was published in 2022, and it reckons with the trauma of child sex abuse. His poetry has appeared in HAD, The Shore, West Trade Review, Atticus Review, Jet Fuel Review, The Laurel Review, and elsewhere. He lives in Washington, D.C., with his wife and their dog and two cats.