Interstellar

After seemingly going missing in 1993, in 2016 Richard Hoagland’s
wife and children discovered he left willingly and had been
living for the past two decades in another state with another family.

In the mornings, the looking glass bore its own image
like a child.
From sounds that had been made before
came sounds that had never been.
From the water came a woman
who walked through the noise like a wall.
A life, one life, funneled through a second life
like a chord,
the decision to declare dead suspended in the air.
Meditative in its logic,
the way love can slip out of itself like a door.
For two decades,
there was no one on the other end –
just time passing for one person
while the other relived the same day
reflected back on itself
like a twin.

Meggie Royer (she/her) is a Midwestern writer and the Founder and Editor-in-Chief of Persephone’s Daughters, a journal for abuse survivors. She has won numerous awards and has been nominated several times for the Pushcart Prize. She thinks there is nothing better in this world than a finished poem. Her work can be found at https://meggieroyer.com.