shedding ashes

she looks like a hot prospect drinking,

she becomes a little girl weeping,

so young, still the shadows of a child,

lurching through vertigo, shedding ashes.

if you gaze gently into her eyes,

if you listen softly as she speaks,

a sudden smile, sweet and surprised,

emerges. there is a flower veiled,

beyond the shards of animal memory,

no exit possible, the fondle lurking,

cries muffled, her home a wicked altar,

so much innocence sacrificed so soon.

enough diagnosis to make you feel better;

didn’t you once boast of life preservers?

but what can i do? this is just in passing.

what medicine of earth and sky?

how many need a vision possible,

not visionary, no light show from heaven,

but a modest map of a future rendered

where each step taken leads.

if she beholds a path leading,

a vision of a woman possible,

her shattering less than a shadow,

a witness to the morning sun.