An Inventory of Imaginings

filed in a ghazal
I said
I never
contemplated the play
of bone and sinew

ash is harder to hold in the mind
it is once, only
when breath
earth
water are given over to flame
everything is too large to see
nothing further than thought
nothing
that will stir with questions
the darker sleeping spaces

a body interred
bears the same framework
that held a heart
that beat
at a ground-kissing pace
in those last seconds
and days before,
when she and I whispered teenaged
worlds
politics
wrinkled our noses at boys
her misaligned top teeth
turned toward one another
as though conferring
she was saving to have them fixed
they’re still there
in a wider stance
grinning in the gloom
keeping company
with the stilled vibrations of the cymbals of her ear
with the etchings on the leg she green-sticked at ten
the slight left-hand veer of septum
the cleft chin
six fillings
all here
and I’m here
while she’s off doing other things

did they take out her earrings?
I never asked
I read about fractures
contusions
the measure of a frame’s limits
these, too, must be
the inventory of imaginings
I lied about in a ghazal.

I realise I’m a bit backwards with the week 21 and week 22 – I have been a little busy with preparations for my journey to Italy. So the poor old Palinode got left behind for a week.

And what is a palinode? It is the retraction of a statement in a previous poem. I’ve gone for freeform here, and I have seen a variety of examples that range from short ditty-like poems, humorous rhymes and freeform.