Ashes and Snow
I.
Gargoyles and wet chain links-relics
of rusted city gates, no longer picturesque but full of
bent bicycle spokes.
They say it’s going to snow later.
It’s almost too easy to be scared in a place like this but
that’s not why I came here. I wanted a
photograph of the initial descent but the light is
too gentle to commit itself to ending this for good and
long after dust settles in empty window ledges,
roof tiles and water taps mingled with iron
filings, the angel cups her hands and blows something back into being.
II.
I take pictures of the frozen waterfall: crystal breaking against crystal and
spilling into the riverbed, glittering. The white lattice
painted by invisible hands and then my red fingers so full of
being, they ache.
I find the bruises blooming in the shower later,
dizzy as a train derailed and it wasn’t until that
moment (naked, dripping) that I felt
utterly alone.
III.
When you look at a corpse, it’s kind of
disappointing, actually. You’re looking for an
answer, for the truth, for
God but those are the same small hands you
remember.
It’s too much, that face. I’m broken but not enough to stop.
And still there’s one last photograph, taken on the way back
from the funeral (this too is the faithless church, the
vault of heaven gutted for parts and left to rust). I remember
this frame like no other-how she reached overhead to pull back her hair,
and I saw the entire
gracious expanse of neck and jaw. I almost choked.
Perhaps her little bones can
float us back to safety,
after all.
Gargoyles and wet chain links-relics
of rusted city gates, no longer picturesque but full of
bent bicycle spokes.
They say it’s going to snow later.
It’s almost too easy to be scared in a place like this but
that’s not why I came here. I wanted a
photograph of the initial descent but the light is
too gentle to commit itself to ending this for good and
long after dust settles in empty window ledges,
roof tiles and water taps mingled with iron
filings, the angel cups her hands and blows something back into being.
II.
I take pictures of the frozen waterfall: crystal breaking against crystal and
spilling into the riverbed, glittering. The white lattice
painted by invisible hands and then my red fingers so full of
being, they ache.
I find the bruises blooming in the shower later,
dizzy as a train derailed and it wasn’t until that
moment (naked, dripping) that I felt
utterly alone.
III.
When you look at a corpse, it’s kind of
disappointing, actually. You’re looking for an
answer, for the truth, for
God but those are the same small hands you
remember.
It’s too much, that face. I’m broken but not enough to stop.
And still there’s one last photograph, taken on the way back
from the funeral (this too is the faithless church, the
vault of heaven gutted for parts and left to rust). I remember
this frame like no other-how she reached overhead to pull back her hair,
and I saw the entire
gracious expanse of neck and jaw. I almost choked.
Perhaps her little bones can
float us back to safety,
after all.