The house -- our house -- is a smoking ruin Electricity's out -- no lights left, save for some random embers I wait for dawn to go in and see what remains, what's lost, what's salvageable. The TV - toast. The couch is bare springs and a skeleton of blackened beechwood. All the food in the fridge - baked. That's ok. I can live with that loss. You reflect on what's really important. What is? What is it? To the bedroom. Where is my wedding ring? The dresser is a charcoal cube An ancient altar after the annual ritual The precious things we placed on top -- consumed The incense of that cedar and burnished cherry rose -- to whose nose? What god found this sacrifice acceptable? Fine. What else? I turn and survey the remains of the nuptial pyre The scene of the sacred ceremony Nothing lingers but a shadow A smudge of grey, the bed ash mocks the entwined occupants What love lay there? Down, down, into dust, blacked out and bedashed No phoenix, my love But eternally darkened cold and still.
(Apr. 3, 2014)
