Cannon Fodder

We try to hold the ashesin the remaining, deformed palm.When mixed with tearsthe ashes solidify into cement.Do we feel grief? We are too numbeven to sort out the fragments in the ashes.

They fall from the sky like snowsmudging our faces with their blackness,as if a punishing spirit wanted us to seeour streaked faces when we gaze in a mirror.

So we must bathe,try to cleanse ourselves,though it’s not possible to wash away the memory,or scrub away the stains.

Splintered like painful nerve endingsthey are everywhere in our bodies,crying out to us like rivers.

Cannon fodder. Cannon ashes.

We roll the cannon ashes through the snowas if creating a giant snowballthat could gather up the fearsthat overpower the remnantsof our dreams, and roll away our silence.The snowball of ashes is enormous, like a monumentthat could collapse at any moment:

dark ashes, heavy and brittle.

Hubei2017