Kindling
BY SARAH ROSE NORDGREN
The details are as yet unclear
as to the how and where –
how to arrange the bones
with their ends touching like so,
and exactly where to conjure
the handful of dark purple
heart – and the timing of it.
See, the parts won’t fit
like we were taught. The cloud
folds into a box without
assistance, cools smooth and heavy
like milk glass in the child’s head.
We should probably fill
the rest in beneath it until
it looks presentable, add meat
to the rough frame we’ve made,
but I also sort of like him this way –
loose and preliminary
in his conception, a sketch
of slender branches
caught in a river eddy
on their way elsewhere. Better,
maybe, to leave him like this,
unfeeling and questionless.
