The old image is of ash drifting like snow

but this morning it flakes through the netted window 
And is nothing like snow

It is flat & grey, endures, does not melt
My first impulse is to put it

to my tongue
I wake before dawn to faraway smells of burning

and I forget at first where I am
In the dark I am in Khartoum
I am on the airport road after midnight

on my way to Sayed Abdelrahman street 
I have been gone a long time

long enough to mourn that smell of smoke
It returns to me tonight & I think I am dreaming

sensations engineered by longing
But the ash floats in and is so small

I could forget it by morning
In the morning, news

In the morning I am returned to California
Farthest address I have held from that old airport road

that first beloved burning
The smell so familiar it is almost a comfort

A haunting dispatched from my forgotten places
So familiar I do not think, at first, fire

I do not think at first to be afraid.