I could see only the outline
of your head and shoulders,
black against the cave mouth,
and so could not see your face
at all, when you turned
and called to me because you had
already lost me. the last
I saw of you was a dark oval.
Though I knew how this failure would hurt you, I had to
fold like a grey moth and let go.
You could not believe I was more than your echo.
-“Orpheus (1),” Margaret Atwood
