Ashes

Strip the world of its noise—
the hum of the lamps,
the song of the kettle,
the pulse of the street.
Let only us remain,
bare and infinite,
caught in the gravity of now.

Your hands are fire and weight,
scorching paths that linger too long,
tracing the edges of who I was
until only you remain.
Every touch breaks the air around us,
every breath thickens the room,
as if the night might implode
if we dared to stop.

Silence hums, not empty, but alive—
heavy with want,
dense with heat,
quivering with the words we won’t speak.
I taste the salt of your skin,
hear the shudder in your breath,
feel the ache of a moment stretched too thin.

Take me into the stillness,
where no clocks tick,
where no stars burn,
where your name etches itself
against the hollow of my throat.

Break the edges of this moment.
Let it crack,
let it bleed.
When the quiet comes,
it will carry no shape of us—
only the ghost of where we burned.

###

I often say poems come in 3s… Just like tonight. I had a couple of drinks, I am alone and miss my husband, which is pathetic because he is on a trip and left this afternoon and he will be back on Tuesday night. I am not used to being without him. In 20 years living together, this is only the 7th time to that we are spending the night apart. (When I had the kids and had to stay in hospital, when I travelled to Brussels and when I travelled to the Netherlands.) Going to bed without him seems daunting. That’s why I keep myself occupied and busy.