Five Brush Strokes Float Mist

“Poems cannot bear even the least brushstroke of floating mist. . .”

Bones

You know smoke meant we burnt here—

Homes, hearts, bones—burned, cracked, black pearls.

We know you burned your world here.

Ghosts of black smoke smudged our world.

Need

Name names. We need names to know

What we should think of your poems.

There’s no shame when there’s no name—

Right and wrong need shame. Name names.

Sight

Light turns back to look at us—

Our eyes drop to save our sight.

Help for us can’t come from walls.

Help runs. Guards must watch all night.

Ghosts

Where there are dunes, the dunes sing.

Sands eat woods, grass, beasts, and kings.

What’s too dry is soon a ghost.

Sands where lakes were sing the most.

Don’t

Calm words called clouds back as mists.

Smoke thinned out to dark, then stars.

The large grew small—small as us,

As this—Don’t see us as large.