by Catherine Owen
So now I bring you back from ashes,
re-form your small waist, scarred hands, long spine
from dust, take the tiny remnants of finely crushed bone
and re-make your face, its strong jaw, its fragile
way of looking at me and within moments you are
as you were, in one of the rooms we shared, sitting
quite close in a chair, smiling and yes, beautiful,
and I say to you, "What now, that I have brought
you back from the dead?" knowing there is no answer to this,
that your ashes are buried beneath the cedars, unreachable,
that there is no chair and no room, that I have not been able to
start the world over again so I can stop you from dying.
re-form your small waist, scarred hands, long spine
from dust, take the tiny remnants of finely crushed bone
and re-make your face, its strong jaw, its fragile
way of looking at me and within moments you are
as you were, in one of the rooms we shared, sitting
quite close in a chair, smiling and yes, beautiful,
and I say to you, "What now, that I have brought
you back from the dead?" knowing there is no answer to this,
that your ashes are buried beneath the cedars, unreachable,
that there is no chair and no room, that I have not been able to
start the world over again so I can stop you from dying.