March 13, 2012

ashes of old lovers

 

It was a gag gift, a novelty purchased at a mid-summer tag sale.
I’d thought, originally, to send it to a friend who was trying to close
a particular chapter of history. It seemed like a fitting container, a vessel
to safeguard memory, ceramic testament to the risks she’d taken. But I suppose
I was thinking of my own stories, tales of love long gone which nevertheless
had left fragments in their wake, tiny shards of grief, dust particles of injuries
sustained by a heart waking up to its wingspan. I kept the jar in the recess
of a bedside shelf, buoyed by its humor. But this morning, something in that breeze
parched my throat. I didn’t want this graveyard near me anymore, even if I can’t forget.
But a space needs to be made for what’s not written yet.