sepia

Won't you hold your flowers
to my laminated childhood photos

the sky blue tinges of which
fade into a pastel lavender

incense burnt to a stump
and smoke trails, like mother's fingers
through my hair, tender, oblique

creases in the photo
fold like the distance between us
as memories pool like spilt milk
on my weathered windowsill
where we lay, sedentary, untethered
comforted with familiarity

our past, preserved in acrylic
yellows and frays at the edges,
while the room grows heavy with ashes
of things I could only avow
to you.

<2025-03-08 Sat>