You ask about ashes?
About remnants?
About ruin and wreckage
you've no right to regard,
rebel that you are.
Coming in peace
to tear me again to pieces,
like pain will press the lesson
less lightly than previous.
Scar archaeologist --
you slash me open
and show me myself.
(Serpent, still, despite so many centuries.)
Always you enjoyed your labels:
archetype, abomination in A minor
as though any sweet-bitter ballad
could conceivably contain
what my cupped hands
never had a hope of holding.
Original sin. Outrageous sinner,
stranger to shame, all audacity,
blithely breaking what you cannot
charm, or bind
or bury.
©sweepingly
S