It is a

beautiful ache-

far back in this awareness, in the

startling beginning of the

world where a flame waits silent, low,

just below the edge of where I am. It

bursts into fire and wonder to melt away

the ghosts of us. Chilled air is overcome

in the reflections of light that rise in me, and

cry out

in me. The frost covering me has

expanded and contracted beneath

and spread my skin to its limits, breaking,

cracking, drinking in the hours that night takes away-

expanding and contracting like breathing

in this ache. The merging of our colors

when the frost melts is an ocean

and warm.

And each ripple

swirls around a flame and the darkness melts to

us above the boughs and down

to rivers and nothing is this

quick to take my breath. Nothing is this real.

Nothing turns my heart to cinder in the same way,

and follows my spine like a wick, and

overwhelms my essence

where I burn and burn into this day’s height and

slow descent.

I have to close my

eyes and

breathe it in.