LARRY D. THOMAS

All the Little Hells

of a world where children sleep,
dreaming of bright red earmuffs
and romping in the snow to exhaustion,
fanning the invisible flames
of metabolism;

where the light, for no clear reason,
will come with morning, shining,
striking everything it touches
into the smokeless conflagration
of revelation;

a world, molten to its core,
on which a bag lady,
warming her freezing hands
with the fire of a fresh orange,
rages like a torch through the darkness.

 

 

Fine Porcelain

When death is near,
with clean hands
white and soft as doves
descending the branches
of a family tree,

we pass it on
as heirlooms.
In cabinets of glass
and fine, finished wood,
we lock it away
 
with skeleton keys
for touching
only by the gloved,
weightless fingers
of light and shadow.

For the mirage
of permanence
we cherish it, this thin,
translucent substance
but the ash of bone.

                                     

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