PAUL MONETTE

"Everything Extraneous Has Burned Away"

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everything extraneous has burned away

this is how burning feels in the fall

of the final year not like leaves in a blue

October but as if the skies were a paper lantern

full of trapped moths beating their fired wings

and yet I can lie on this hill just above you

a foot beside where I will lie myself

soon soon and for all the wrack and blubber

feel still how we were warriors when the

merest morning sun in the garden was a

kingdom after Room 1010 war in not all

death it turns out war is what little

thing you hold onto refugees and far from home

oh sweetie will you please forgive me this

that every time I opened a box of anything

Glad Bags One-A-Days KINGSIZE was

the worst I’d think will you still be here

when the bus is empty Rog Rog who will

play boy with me now that I bucket with tears

through it all when I’d cling beside you sobbing

you’d shrug it off with the quietest I’m still

here I have your watch in the top drawer

which I don’t dare wear yet help me please

the boxes grocery home day after day

the junk that keeps men spotless but it doesn’t

matter now how long they last or I

the day has taken you with it and all

there is now is burning dark the only green

is up by the grave and this little thing

of telling the hill I’m here oh I’m here