Echo Wren

June 1, 2018

“Europa” by Echo WrenPosted by

Echo Wren

EUROPA

He was the first astronaut they sent
into space without arms and legs,
and not only that but blind as well,
which wasn’t an issue, thanks
to cameras installed on his helmet,
sending home images he would never see,
to a family he no longer had.

It was timeless in there,
in his suit that was just an oval pod—
no baseball games, no soccer scores,
no watching his parents turn into milestones,
no seeing how beautiful we all used to be
on Throwback Thursdays, before he was born.
No feeling fingers upon his face
and thinking, This is a hand, this feeling
is a hand, what is a hand?
This is a hand.
And now the cold of the universe
touches his cheek as he drifts
farther and farther to where
we cannot touch him.

And they say man can live on Europa,
because it has water. They say
civilization can still exist,
because a mind is there to imagine it,
even without an arm to pick up the stone,
or an eye to see where it should land.

—from Rattle #59, Spring 2018
Tribute to Immigrant Poets

__________

Echo Wren: “I escaped Vietnam with my mother as a small child. I have no memories of my homeland, but somehow I recognize the soil, the sounds and smells. This language of impressions, preceding my capacity to understand, still forms the foundation of my being. I love poetry because it captures things half-remembered and lost. I write poetry because I am looking for home.”

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May 30, 2018

“The Last Toothbrush” by Echo WrenPosted by

Echo Wren

THE LAST TOOTHBRUSH

When the end of the world arrived, I still had my toothbrush.
I felt ridiculous clutching it, but I had just finished brushing
when the alarms rang, and I needed to hang onto something.
I went out into the street in my pajamas.
The dawn had not yet broken, and in the civil twilight
wandered men who had fallen asleep in yesterday’s
shirt and tie, and children following the rules
of hide and seek, and couples dressed in rumpled bedsheets,
rustling like yesterday’s news.

I surveyed the dazzled mob. Most of these people, I bet,
hadn’t brushed their teeth yet, and among them
I felt like the luckiest. I was the wealthiest
in civility, in manners, in the passing style
of luxurious hygiene. I smiled forth the promise
of untainted breath, stain-free chompers
chomping through a new day, free of the life
I had lived and the life I had eaten, the blank slate
of my mouth with no history of decay—
and my pajamas were a clean pair.

I hung onto that toothbrush, why I don’t know.
It wasn’t a hand, it wasn’t a memory, the bristles
were worn down into curls. But the end of the world was here—
all boundaries were breaking, we were half naked
half awake on the streets, and somehow,
someway, through some blueprint of muscle
memory and the inheritance of rituals
and two-minute habits, I found myself
trying to find new ways to build
the walls again.

—from Rattle #59, Spring 2018
Tribute to Immigrant Poets

__________

Echo Wren: “I escaped Vietnam with my mother as a small child. I have no memories of my homeland, but somehow I recognize the soil, the sounds and smells. This language of impressions, preceding my capacity to understand, still forms the foundation of my being. I love poetry because it captures things half-remembered and lost. I write poetry because I am looking for home.”

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