Sulphur or Wood
It’s the first thing upon waking:
The outline of your loss
Like a bare sun in the morning trees.
Before you can even recall specifics
The longing hits you, cold and absolute.
Your own name, still lost in the dark
Of sleep, yet this feeling rising
Through your body
Like a rage or sickness.
It’s the kind of thing you feel
When you realize the best of days
Have passed before you, and you
Missed the music.
Regret so palpable, you can call it
Sulphur or wood.
The simplest of news holds no richness
Against the fiber of this grief.
It moves through your life
Until the world is full of ghosts
In passing.
It burns for no other reason
Than for the love of ashes.
Something in you so quietly razed
That no one at the kitchen table
Can see the chilled fire
Eating at your eyes.
Cacti Fur 