back to Issue 18
by Nathaniel Lachenmeyer
I was eight and in my prime, standing before the Parthenon under the glaring sun, when I looked at the ground and saw it: a geometric pattern in black and white. My heart started beating faster. The guards were no more than twenty feet away. Crouching down and pretending to tie my sneakers, I picked up the ancient pottery shard and tucked it into my right shoe. It was thrilling; it was shameful. And it gave me a limp. The thrill has faded with age. I am left with the shame and, somewhere, the stolen shard. I remember the last time I came across it, years ago now. I thought if everyone who climbed that hill after me had done what I did, there would be nothing left of Ancient Greece; and I thought, and it surprised me to realize it, that there has always been something in me that will do what I know to be wrong. But that thing is finally growing old. One day I will return to Greece and give the ancient shard back to Athena, and then, I will offer it up as a sacrifice—not the pottery; that other broken fragment of me—and say goodbye to both for good.
Nathaniel Lachenmeyer’s first book, The Outsider, which takes as its subject his late father’s struggles with schizophrenia and homelessness, was published by Broadway Books. Nathaniel has new work with Subtropics, ANMLY, The American Poetry Review, Poetry International Online, and Potomac Review. He lives outside Atlanta with his family. NathanielLachenmeyer.com