Ashes in My Pockets

Ashes in My Pockets

I leave the house lighter,

But only because I’m carrying less fire.

In my coat—two small furnaces

gone cold enough to hold:

scraps of yesterday’s letters,

a ticket stub that burned too slowly,

the brittle syllables we couldn’t unsay.

I walk like a candle with its tongue bitten,

smoke, remembering the shape of flame.

Crosswalks blink their patient metronomes.

I keep time with my ghost.

On the bridge, wind scouts my seams,

tries every stitch like a locksmith.

A few gray flakes escape, hover,

and decide the river can keep them.

I want to scatter what I saved,

but grief is practical—

It likes containers.

Pockets. Jars. The long drawer

where I fold my sharper midnights.

I reach in, blacken my fingers,

and touch my face the way

a miner checks the vein—

not for gold,

just to be sure it’s still there.

You once said love should be heat,

not smoke. I believed you,

Then learned how winter works:

Some nights, the ashes warm the hands

that can’t find any fire.

At home, I empty the lining—

a soft gray weather on the dresser.

I whisper the names of what we burned,

sift out a seed of an unlit future,

and tuck it back—for planting,

for when the ground remembers how.