my ashen ruins
my cheeks perspire. with ire. but no longer taste. tears drop salted waste. from my eyes.
bed linens, dry from no weeping, now merely keeping. the ash and sand from my windy lands.
warm breezes no longer caress my face, weathered leather, like the fake chairs that adorn this place.
wooden floors do not feel. my feet. my knees. steeled. hard, like lava rock buried deep underneath.
the world outside. my world inside. neither find a place in me to abide.
an empty fortress nothing penetrates. streets with locked gates.
only
my lonely
hard floors. sandy winds. dry linens. dry eyes. weathered and leathered skin.
my ashen ruins
emptied
still
keep baring beauty
©2022 Jeanne Whitman all rights reserved
