Dream-Killed Nights
smoke like whispers of a dying
fire, a cross that cannot stretch
the water. I long to travel
the war-torn tendrils, feel
the breath of a thousand fish
beneath me. Life has a strange way
of marking, and mocking, our passage.
The Breath Before Ignition
Tangible holds emanate. Ghosts
of ember’s future ruminate, raise
the possibility of heat in incremental stages.
Tactility surrenders
to ephemeral. Smoke whispers. Friction
fills the wind like thunder. One strike.
The world starts
counting
down
to
flame.
Even After Death
The skull should have been desiccated, void
of anything even remotely alive,
and yet as a slight breeze rustled the desert floor,
a hint of fur bristled along the brow line.
It was only a second’s flash of defiance,
but I chose to hold it in my mind
as if it were an echo of the million
miles of memories that came before.