17 September 2012
Patiently and quietly, I watch your dark figure disappear over the horizon Not looking back, A curse pressed on the inside of your mouth And a tear rolls, glassy and not belonging to me Down a pearly cheek
I kneel down, The pile of ash in front of me, And begin brushing away at the dust.
Burrowing my pale fingers into the velvet ash, I feel around for what I am looking for. And there in the pile, no bigger than a cupful I find it, hard and rough
I pull it out, and blow upon its coarseness Sending plumes of black billowing below And see its form Shaped like a fist Round, rough like bark, And see what you did,
My heart, once fleshy and red, Beating faster around you, A metal detector Now sits in the palm of my hand As a solid piece of coal.
And there, in the rain and dirt Kneeling in the clay of the earth, I see that since we begun The pressured that built up, The weight of what was above me, And the years I endured this, Has left me with nothing more than coal.
Coal • Opuss № I