spare-ness

by JKD, after a beautiful burning by Sue Chenette and Sliced by Jill Darling

of memory's burning
brazen, strung out words languageless
images coated over imagining
grass undone
a flamerushed summer
gone to brush
whispered edge of cattails
cave-shadowed murk
moss and ponds hooked to
mind or flipping fins
shimmers shaped such tricks
of refused solidity:

look – we’ve fallen to panoplies
of ashes, sought sparks
within each scratched out letter
this self’s surface passing
unrecorded
the stretched sound
strung over field to the lip of yes
slipped hands, fern blades, blush
underneath, the gaze grazed
cool against the restraint
of fumbling syllables