Ashes
It shatters into ice-tray chips
That melt to ashes in the atmosphere,
Softly floating down to you.
Flakes landing in your front yard
Like the burning leaves of autumn,
But then blowing elsewhere
Caught in the breath of heaven’s air.
Can a child collect
The ashes of a heart
And roll a snowman on the lawn?
No answer is certain,
Not even the coming dawn,
And my wanderings, like the ash,
Wonder on and on.
The What If Game
On the couch next to her, in a thoughtful lull,
(Her eyes—brown, warm: they were like that, indeed,
But amplified by an amiable lens:
Or friendship, that unexamined window
Which I feared to dirty with greasy doubts sown
In a dream of opposite things from
What is.) I suppose I looked far away. She
Asked me: What are you thinking of? I
Thought some and then said: What if I were just a
Ghost? What proof do you have that I am real?
Well what proof have you? Perhaps I’m a ghost too.
It’s Funny, I said. What, said she. I only thought…
Are not ghosts supposed to be see-through?
