Last Things

“…ash provides the most elegant
last transport imaginable.” ~ Amy Gerstler

She picked up a nest blown out of the trees in the storm. No traces of its former inhabitants, not one feather or hair.

*

A limo passed them on the highway one day in summer: from the black-tinted window rolled down, a bare leg; toes dangling a lit cigarette.

*

On a canvas pallet, amid the rubble of the fallen hospital, his slight frame shook from the effort to exhale. It was early in the monsoon season, and a fine spray of rain made outlines of every form.

*

He’d written in his will that he wanted his ashes mixed with hers, in one of the old bee-boxes from their farm.

*

Imagine the hive at night: cellular structure of breathing, each minute papered with amber, riven with unfiltered sweet.

*

In the end, the papery husk falls away from the clove. The shorn head lies in the lap of the wind, the face newly washed buries itself in the arms of elusive scent.

 

In response to Via Negativa: Horticultured.

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