Ahhh college, a time of hubris and risk-taking and, in my case, poetry. From previous blogs Couldn’t Just Sign Your Name, Huh? and Skeletons (aka journals) In My Closet, you might have gathered that poetry has always been a pastime of mine but college was an especially prolific time.

And what is poetry tucked away in your college notebooks? Mummified. Dead. Kindling. Wasted Space. So I dug one out, for old time’s sake, because a tree that falls in the forest…

—–

It Dwells There Still

A house, patchwork doors and eaves

Curtains starving for wind and crumpled magazines

Where the bickering of flames was hot upon the snow

And a dark exhale set out against the brittle light

A house

Smoke snuffing at a noonday sun

Blankets to ash

I dwell there still

The fire I lit

It burned for days

A body opened up to the sky

Charred bones reaching up from snow

It dwells in me

Where tongues of flame licked threadbare walls

Till they were clean and sanctified

Feet washed in tears and dried in hair

A single spark would dance upon the empty shells

The house I dwell within

——–

Aaaaand scene!