The Book of Ash
Half-burnt, half-
buried, abandoned in a dark pit dug out of sand—a book—beach chairs all around it. No one else even seemed to see it. That beach, that spot—I read Of Mice & Men there, years ago now, a worn-out paperback, so worn the glue was brittle, so brittle each page pulled free from the spine as I turned it. A windy day, each page blew from my hand, skittered away down the beach until the last page . . . . Now, on my desk, The Book of Ash, ash fallen on the floor around it. I ask my daughter not to touch it but of course she touches it, her fingertips black now. The spine is burnt completely away, it burned from the top down, the spine like a fuse, the flame running down it while fanning upward. Now, when I open what’s left, it looks like wings. The book (before it was set on fire), from what can be deciphered, was a test, or maybe simply a way to prepare for a test—pages of stories followed by pages of questions, the answers multiple choice. A drawing of some leaves, the answers on the facing page: a: burned b: holes c: displayed Now, when you open what’s left, ash falls like tiny black feathers. Sometimes my body is afraid--you would tremble carcass, if you knew where I was dragging you next. Hold this wing up to the light, the carbon letters shine. Be. Fifteen. Was. This is how flames will paraphrase us all. This book, this ash. I try to pull it back together, I glue each wing into a clean white book. |
Nick Flynn's most recent book, The Reenactments (2013) completes a trilogy begun with Another Bullshit Night in Suck City (2004). His previous book, The Captain Asks for a Show of Hands (2011), was a collection of poems linked to the second book of the trilogy, The Ticking is the Bomb (2010). The author of the poetry collections Some Ether and Blind Huber, Flynn's fourth collection of poetry, My Feelings, is forthcoming in 2015. |
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