The ashes belong to me.

Not what goes up in flames, but the soot.

The abacus of myrtle counting

down to droopage, ruin

in rain that bulbs all surface

tension with light–it’d be long

before any of that fits.

Salt of driftwood.

Not a mere pant.

Nor bodied.

Here comes the chant:

let your pain be

your prophet telling truths

no one wanted over

the cackle of children you don’t love

likely for none belongs to you.

How much life fits in one backpack.

The moon’s sooted forehead

I’m left writing into a stray

swarm of bees.

Snow marrow

inherited by blood.

Soothed right, left, then wrong.

Here: one of us, one of us.

What words to my name, what

world, if any.