Portrait in Ash
In summer, sweet crushed ice, and crickets pulsing through the night.
Brake lights, and always the blurred memory of nicotine.
I recall running through the glow, laughing, fingers splayed forward,
and the ensuing sharp admonishment.
Steel, flint and spark. Blackened linings and diminishment.
How many washings must one endure to accept an indelible soiling?
In retrospect, your body still resists.
Lovely smoke uncoiling towards the moon, residue of impurities
and substance. Desire, freed and returning.
You dwell underground. I gaze at the cloud-marred sky.
* * *
“Portrait in Ash” appears in Interval’s Night, a mini-digital chapbook, available for free download from Platypus Press.
You have such an amazing way of refining the complexities of human existence down to their most essential, simplest truths.
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Thank you, Ms. H. Things occasionally filter out of my cluttered mind… 🙂
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I love reading your writing, thank you for posting. What inspired this piece?
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Thank you! This is part of a series I wrote on grief and memory several years ago. I’m often struck by how memories may align themselves so strongly with physical objects or even the vague notion of these objects/observations.
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So nice to read
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Thanks very much!
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