Crisp and cracking like dried bark, my fingers
breaking its charred, pockmarked skin to quarters
with dark gummed borders, aroma lingers
like ancient scent of lost cities, martyrs
smoked from village huts, my love letters you
struck a match to once you ruled we’re no match.
I study blackened rind, my heightened view
as a falcon might sight forest’s edge, batch
of cinders melted and melded like parched
leather strip, corpse of soft ribbon you bound
around my letters long before you marched
out from this breakfast room, our hallowed ground
where light jokes and laughter rose after we woke,
life’s bread lost in our…my…toaster’s phantom smoke.
Roger Armbrust
October 28, 2010
