There’s something running hot and deep
within the kissproof weather of our night.
A promise choked
in throats too full to sing
in arms too bold to rise.

There’s reaching done and singing too
within the maddest masquerade.
But here’s the fire we set.
Beneath it: tender tinder
and a devastation only seen in films on war
where everything is nothing
but  million-dollar folly.

Night falls down.
We walk away to sleep
alone no matter what.
No one will ever touch the center.
There has been ash around it
since my birth.
There will be ash around it
when I die. So white.

 

 

 

Linda Frye Burnham