Embers
These are the slow-burning embers
of grief; sparks of love that flare and flame
and die again, fading in the darkness
like fireflies in a jar.
I dream, still. Outside, a sun
is rising, not a parallel world but this world
untethered, unmoored from its orbit
and drifting. Dreams promise life
in the morning sky and the dripping
of evening through trees, the golden touch
of horizon on bare skin. I wake cold,
uncertain. With each fading pulse of light
I say here, hold my hand, it’s not far
to where we cannot see.
In the distance, birdsong,
falling. Slipping through my fingers
like sweet rain.
Elodie Barnes is a writer of short things. She isn't a fan of labels, and her writing often hovers in the spaces between fiction, poem, prose poem, and creative nonfiction. Despite this, her work appears regularly in online and print journals, and has been nominated for Best of the Net and the Pushcart Prize. She is Books Editor and Creative Writing Editor for Lucy Writers Platform, and was guest editor of their 2020 Life in Languages series exploring languages and translation. She is currently working on two creative nonfiction projects: a series of fragmentary 'essayettes' on the modernist writer Djuna Barnes, and a series of hybrid pieces on grief, nature and place. Find her online at elodierosebarnes.weebly.com.