523
Dissolve
I feel my rigidity dissolving
Seventy-one years
of do’s and don’ts
haves and have nots
shoulds and shouldn'ts
all seem to be sliding past
like the spin of the night sky
shifting from darkness to light
Perhaps it could be called a rebirth
a restart, a reset, but it feels more
like a reconnection
to something lost long ago
like the sudden sweep of memory that
comes with a familiar scent
bringing with it feelings
of bright, warm home.
These memories return in waves
descrying what was, what seemed
so set, but now is suddenly fluid,
moving and shifting in a panoply of color
and light to a vanishing
point of abstraction
where something remains, asking me
what do I hold and what
do I sift through my fingers?
Color, smell, light, words stick to me,
warmth and home stay.
but the rest crumbles like ash
at a crematorium
to be birthed again in the
smoke of the atmosphere
