Published on: 3/11/2010
Ashes

Your grave
is where your spirit lingers most.
An image laid across the mind.
A ghostly moon adrift in a place
where darkness burns to come home.

Crows settled on the rooftops
of your house when you died
and when they laid you out
I did not come to see you.
Now your voice is impaled
on the velvet darkness,
your bones rattling in the closet.

Dissonant bells ring in my dreams
as I run across dead leaves
willing it all back into place
trying to breathe life
back into everything
being carried away on the wind,
your ashes rising with every breath,
damp and gray like mountain fog.

Beside my door is a mask
which I wear whenever I go out.
Lost among crowds, I imagine you
as the fire of a desert wind
with a body composed of light
in a future of glittering skyscrapers
and your light amazing the mind.