Notes About The Poem
image from Amaya Phoenix
ASHES AND HONEY
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
MORNING:
daylight catches dust motes
dancing above the kitchen sink.
you watch them spiral,
brief constellations
in the steam from your coffee cup.
THE COMMUTE:
a river of brake lights,
faces behind glass
polished smooth as stones
by the current.
AT THE OFFICE:
polite laughter cracks
like thin ice over deep water.
you answer emails
with exclamation points
sharp enough to pierce cardstock.
EVENING:
you trace the lines
on your partner’s sleeping face –
familiar as your own palm,
yet shifting
in the streetlamp’s yellow glow.
outside, the moon hangs
like a question mark
over the recycling bins.
is the performance
in the stiff shirt,
the automated smile,
the carefully curated playlist?
or is it here:
in the raw ache
when the neighbor’s dog dies?
in the way your throat tightens
at old photographs?
in the silent, furious prayer
you send when the test results come back?
perhaps the facade
isn’t the masks we wear,
but the insistence
that something behind them
is more real.
the dust motes settle.
the coffee cools.
you drink it anyway.
the truth tastes
like both ashes
and honey
on the tongue.
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