The Headless Horseman Speaks

“Emptiness in a Dream by Ehsan Ahmed Mehedi

After the Irving

I don’t cross that bridge anymore.
I could, if I wanted, although

then I’d have to touch the rust
streaking the handrails with nosebleed.

Not that I know much about noses.
I might cross if it weren’t for the water

carrying on underneath.
Even just standing on the bridge

I feel its thirst. It wants
me to wonder where it could take me.

If I let it, it would show me
the last place I’d ever go.

It would feel disrespectful, somehow,
to just walk over to your side,

to forget the coyotes and their covens,
the suburban deer, the mountain mint

huddled in what remains
of the daylight.

But don’t listen to me. My head
is a gourd and I’m out of it.

-

There are reasons to stay
on this side. I once ate the passionfruit

spiraling up your fence. That was
back in summer. Once,

there was a fence.
Once, there was summer.

One summer, I helped you
build the fence. You fed me passion-

fruit. If I had known
the fence would be all I had left

of you, I would have worked
a little harder.

-

I like it here. I like it
here. Here it’s always like fall

but if the fall hadn’t come down
yet. If it had caught itself

before it ripped open its palms
on all the roots and gravel

on this side of the creek. Here,
there’s sleep, hollowed

of rest. There’s pines
without needles.

If I’m damned
it’s not by any god.

The stones are all grave.
It’s what I know.

-

I remember what it’s like on your side.
The sun a movie monster closer

each time you blink. Summer
squeezing all the other seasons out

of the year. The heat would catch
in my throat and burn

the skin cinnamon,
assuming the blisterlight

didn’t crack my neck
like red clay. No, here,

wounds can’t get worse.
Here is cold, an inevitable

kind. A cold you don’t know
you always knew until you feel it.

It’s the cold of before you
and after you. It will be familiar,

then, after some time, it will have been
familiar. After some time

there will be no time. Only after.
It’s easy to be

what’s familiar. It’s easy
to be cold.

-

If there’s summer
again, passionfruit will return

the fence’s favor and heave
the rotten beams out of the clay.

Will outbrilliant the sun.
Leaves and roots will grasp in all directions,

grateful for every funeral
the coyotes held here.

-

Here, no one expects much
of me. I just have to scare

enough twentysomethings to be
remembered another season.

One of them called me
Ichabod, and I thought it was you

accusing me of want.
My red coat turned to stomach lining:

damp velvet, slow acid.
She asked me if Brom bones

and I promise I wanted to laugh.
My name was something else, though,

before fall. All that matters
now is I’m a Landeskind,

certain of Abend,
but not of brot.

A good Hessian waiting
for orders. For you

to tell me
cross.

So that you’ll see me

shake my head.

About the author

J. (Jay) Aelick is a birdwatcher, disc golfer, tarot reader, and sometimes even poet. Their work has previously appeared or is forthcoming in The Journal, The Blowing Rock Art and History Museum, sinking city, Okay Donkey, Common Ground Review, Barely South Review, and elsewhere. They are one half of the St. Balasar University English Club podcast, a comedy and literature review show where they critique internet-infamous books as if they had been submitted for workshop at the fictional university. They are an MFA candidate at North Carolina State University.

About the artist

Ehsan Ahmed Mehedi is a poet, photographer, and designer from Bangladesh. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in The Quarter(ly), Wintermute Lit, Barzakh Magazine, Stonecoast Review, and LAMP Anthology. In his free time, he enjoys narrating audiobooks for Librivox.