R

Ash

We’ve been told and we believe
that ash covers the earth like a second skin.
The bomb has finally hit or
a second pompeii, perhaps, forcing us, you and I,
to take cover under three thick stories
of entombment. We wait for a sign, day by day,
until to stay, we fear, means
these cremains pressing into our nostrils
into our ears, deafening us to death.

So I, careful, cut away a dry square of wall
with you, love, right behind me and I promising
oh god let us have our life together
let us climb through the black soot up
into a life that I won’t squander again.

And you say
hold your breath, we will go
together—choking—
I move away my patch of wall and force these hands
up through the roof, through filthy sheets of plastic
and into our uncertain escape.

Yet I find the earth not changed. There is no ash.
A year’s imprisonment with blacked-out windows
spent in anxious planning and
begging god’s pardon for nothing.

Now we have our life together—nothing stops it.
But I don’t believe in god.
I, sideways, glance at you and say
you got three dollars, dear?
I’m out of cigarettes.