Pantoum for the Free Climber's Girlfriend

By Elizabeth Sylvia

	After watching the documentary Free Solo

I keep thinking of you measuring the walls,
saying you’re allowed one question every day 
about furnishing the condo Alex has just bought,
or when you asked him in the front seat of his van

(saying you’re allowed one question every day)
if you were someone worth not dying for
or, when you asked him in the front seat of his van
to rate his happiness, how blank he looked.

If you were someone worth not dying for
you would be someone more than just a girl
to rate his happiness. How blank he looked
remitting your devotion and your hope.

You would be someone more than just a girl
if you were loved by someone far out on the ledge,
remitting your devotion and your hope
with the reflective glow of his cold greatness.

If you were loved by someone far out on the ledge,
his hands would always hope for stone
with the reflective glow of his own greatness
before him on the mountain face.

Alex’s hands will always hope for stone,
the form that excellence must take for him;
before him on the mountain face
your passions can’t seem anything but trivial.

The form that excellence must take for him
makes people on the ground seem tiny specks,
our passions can’t seem anything but trivial.
Heights and solitude like that

make people on the ground seem tiny specks.
Don’t come to see yourself
from heights and solitude like that
as if your soul were no more than a dot.

Don’t come to see yourself 				
as little.  Things you love
as if your soul were no more than a dot
are great things even in their commonness.

As little things we love					
are requited, they become
great things, even in their commonness:
Those joys and cares tie us together.

Requited, they become
the solid rock to build a life upon,
those joys and cares that tie us together,
shared work, shared devotion.

The solid rock to build a life upon
isn’t furnishing the condo Alex has just bought,
but shared work, shared devotion. 
I keep thinking of you measuring the wall. 

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Elizabeth Sylvia (she/her) is a writer of poems and other lists who lives with her family in Massachusetts, where she teaches high school English and coaches debate. Elizabeth’s work is upcoming or has recently appeared in Salamander, Pleiades, Soundings East, J Journal, RHINO, Main Street Rag, and a bunch of other wonderful journals. She is currently working on a verse investigation of the writer Elizabeth Barstow Stoddard.

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