ECHOES
By Ryan James Wilson
 

In the deep rural silence

of this, your old plantation house,

I hear them playing together:
 

tiny feet stomping the hardwood,

squealing voices chasing each other,

shrill giggles muffled in the thick, late-night air.
 

Some I have carried

piggy-back from my world.

Others you have supplied
 

with candy-canes and butterscotch

since they met your own brood

the day you moved in, years ago.
 

Of course, you are more fatherly.

You have more love

for them than I ever have.
 

Walking in the garden, I became sure

I will have to leave

at least one of the vermin with you.
 

I leave one behind

every place I go,

just as a new one takes up with me.
 

If the lot would just leave me alone,

I would not have to lose

so much sleep now, wondering which one
 

will grow up and come find me as an old man,

proud he survived without

my nourishment, and knock on my door,
 

smiling like he’ll live forever.
 
 

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RYAN JAMES WILSON is a recent graduate of The University of Georgia. He currently lives and writes in Athens, GA.