Dark eyes opened up like the clouds
The day the familiar outlines became dark wisps and
Lines beneath a charred, gasping sky.
It is said that it was gone in seconds,
But others said minutes.
I do not know who to believe
Because those who would have known
Are scattered among the stars.
My grandfather makes his home
Among the constellations.
My mother tells me that he was as lovely as June,
Yet strong and firm as an ox,
And I believe her,
Because I do not know this man who neighbors the moon.
A certificate came in the mail.
It shrank like an injured bird in my father's hands.
He will not tell me who it is for,
But I know it is not for me.
This summer is my tenth year
Of returning to the place
Where grandfather ascended
And everything I came from billowed up
In clouds of smoke and gusts of ash
That dotted the ground like a poisonous snow.
This winter is my tenth to see
The white blankets that so frightfully mock
The memory of ash,
A beautiful shadow of death.
My mother tells me they are the tears of the people
Who are scattered in the sky,
Who wish to float down and kiss our cheeks
And say hello.
She says that grandfather's tears are there, too,
So that I may look upon the frosted glass
And see his face in the snow
To say hello to him as well.
YOU ARE READING
pressed flowers
Poetryshe had heard too many stories of people being broken and bent like wire, so she became a violet pressed between yellow pages of a well-worn book.
