By Jim Piatt
Memories silhouetted against dead branches,
the color of ashes. Survivors stood in cold
embers in empty rooms,
reflections of anguish and heated words.
Rain poured outside, angry sounds that
retreated into the calculus of lonely rooms
filled with a chill. Thoughts curled around
the heavy air, the room swayed with
unrhythmic pulses.
She kept her memories with discarded
buttons in an old jar near her bed. Each one
never growing fader, lessons never learned,
like desires floating in the sky, like
owls without feathers.
She hates her mother, yet her love is
endless, and trauma always ensues.
James Piatt, a nonagenarian, twice Best of Net nominee, and four-time Pushcart nominee, has had five books, The Silent Pond, Ancient Rhythms, LIGHT, Solace Between the Lines, and Serenity, as well as 1,890 individual poems published. He earned his doctorate from BYU, and his BS and MA from California Polytechnic University, SLO.