ashes darker, larger
———this year the cross

crossing my forehead,
———crossing the ashes

I will become, dust
———from which

to which I will go, my
———life smaller

each year, my life
———my little soul-skin

 

 

---

Martha Collins’s eleventh book of poems is Casualty Reports; her tenth, Because What Else Could I Do (both from Pittsburgh), won the Poetry Society of America’s William Carlos Williams Award. www.marthacollinspoet.com

 

 

Photo by Ahna Ziegler on Unsplash