ashes in my mouth

By Jónína Kirton

your death ash in my mouth
until I look up and a cooling cascade 
of water begins to wash you away
but I am not ready to let you go so close my mouth
trapping what is left of the ash now made muddy by sky tears

I am afraid to spit you out 
welcome the feel of grit on my teeth
defend my need for you
not interested in letting go I sink into the feelings most avoid
many ask why         I have no answers until forty years later
I see what their attempts to wash away losses have left behind
it does not work      some things resist revision
if it hurts     it hurts    until it doesn’t

Jónína Kirton is a Red River Métis/Icelandic poet and a graduate of the Simon Fraser University’s Writer’s Studio. She published her first book, page as bone ~ ink as blood, in 2015 at sixty years of age. Her second book, An Honest Woman, was a finalist in the Dorothy Livesay Poetry Prize.