Poem: What Keeps Me Awake

 his bones resurface from the ashpit
    whenever I think I've crushed
 his final nib & forklifted
more lush flames onto his grounds

 last week it was a hand
passed itself up through char
& cupped compacted crater lip
clunk   clunk  thud

like a catfish that won't die
for several hammer swings to head
it flopped & flipped its way past roots
                         which w(oul)d've recoiled
if they c(oul)d

 long ago—cedars don't believe
in vengeance
                       don't understand
how remembered fires
are passed by force of skin
to skin & spread
                               if not contained
by lighting them again

Written in response to Big Tent Poetry’s Monday Prompt for 22 November 2010.

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