Ash
A poem
5 nights naked
I have put my knees on the tile floor I cleaned before you came.
I strike one match,
Light one candle
In the dark apartment bathroom.
I fold my arms inside
I bow down, concave
I place my forehead on the floor
begging
You to be strained out of me,
gutted and gone
To be deveined, bloodletted
By Divine Mercy or some exorcist
Who will give me acrid herbs or oil or poison
to flush you from my bones.
I will tell her to carve out from me
your eyes, your melody, your gait;
The parts you caressed: charred.
She can leave me one-armed or nearsighted —
Leave me blind.
Leave me smoking if necessary
near-death.
I will pay anything.
She will collect the flecks of skin and hair and nail
that the rite expels
And exile you to where possessing spirits go
Never again will I
Recognize any part of you in me
No reference will exist
No history
You will be the empty lot where the burned books
were housed in a burned library
You will be the dead language that vanished
I will be sovereign again:
Whatever is left of me.
