nihil

this poem will burn.

in february, there is always a woman outside
warming her hands over a trash fire.
she’s turned her back
on the dead sun, that distant eye
shrouded in thick woolen clouds.

whorls of grey and white hair
escape from her red cap.
over the mouth of the garbage can,
her fingers tremble
like the high notes of a violin
as weak flames try to lick them.

take this poem to her.
she will hold it in those dirty fingers,
will feel the fibrous grains
of the paper, the smoothness of ink.

she will not read it.
“there’s no meaning,” she’ll say,
letting the poem go.

it will waver on the wind
for just a moment —
then the settling, the burning,
curls of bright fire like gold leaf.

the woman will weep with you.
she will tell you there is no such thing
as a poem.

there is only the winter,
only the snow inside her boots.

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© 2015 nessa jasper