by Kaye Spivey
I am a crepe-paper promise,
a moth in resin residing deftly over
words, stacked and ready for hands,
ready and silent and waiting
for a spark to catch and alight,
announcing to the world
these words are useless—
we’re not ready for them.
Or we’re too ready but too thin to hold something
heavy, something sharp enough to break the branch
that was stripped and sawed and made the page.
The whole atmosphere is burning,
dancing, fire burning paper—
Let’s turn the screen off.
I am a thin paper craft and I catch easily.
Keep me safe and let the memory linger.
Catch me in the wind before the sparks rise,
hold me tight against a bleeding chest
to clot the wound,
or let me catch the current
and rise with it like ashes—
dust to sky.