Wren Horne-Sarkees

everything seemed to fit on a picnic blanket

and you had a chance of turning sixteen

that night, did you smell the same smoke

every candle now finds me with?

in striking the match and coaxing the wick to flame,

surely, your hands were rougher—

your pupils, darker than mine—

and yet, every act seems to follow just the same

change each cue but everytime

Birnam Wood marches to Dunsinane

move past the unlucky name

and ask me sooner to cleave my shadow

from my flesh

if only i heard your voice again,

in little rants about baudelaire

and what “the mirror” really meant—

the way your nervousness bowed one leg over the other;

of all the seeds i grew from you,

how i cannot burn incense