What Ingrid Bergman Wanted
By Ivy Alvarez
Published 1 January 2021
Because the river is never still enough to reflect the sky,
I want to stay. I want to say
to strangers, who say I love you, it’s untrue.
The mirrors of their eyes only blind me.
There’ll be no ovation. There’s hardly a road.
Home is a distant thought, hovering on a squall.
I spot a chapel in the shade
covered in lichen’s dull brocade.
No-one’s looking at me, kid.
Take a flake of rock, scratch the word
Ingrid into bark, letter by letter.
By the force of my hand,
I might earn permanency.
Let that plane leave without me.