My mother was in the back of my thoughts last night.
I saw the tilt of her jaw, the crossing of her bony wrists;
eyes watching me, mute, peering from the flame,
as it flickered and waved.
Siren song
The smell is familiar, the taste foreign, yet….
I remember it in another life.
I look towards the night sky, and I see
a bathroom ceiling, and the brick walls
of an outdoor garden,
sitting in iron chairs.
I saw my mother in the ashes,
the haze, the palm of that proffered hand.
And I searched, and I discovered….
nothing.
So I winked at my mother as I saw her
in the ashes, the haze,
the palm of that proffered hand,
and I took the lighter,
and set my mother aflame.