Ephemera Poem by Katrina Harms

My words are brittle bird bones,
crumbling beneath the weight of truth
For in this world we have all claimed many,
like a man upon a tract of ceaseless land
saying 'This is mine, '
and though he thinks his struggle immediate, just-
in time he too is devoured under that aching red sun
beneath which each human endeavor rots,
is trampled and is lost.

I am nothing, dear one, as are you-
I have paved my life within the contours of your
profile, your hands fill the space where mine cannot.
And we shall shriek into the wind,
we will catch the other's glance, we shall ache
and break each other upon passionate stones.
I am alone, despite you. I am alone, in spite of you-
and each moment I wake to see your delicate
brow furrowed in dreams,
mine furrowed in wakened agony of seeing death's
swiftness
in each
wrinkle
fold
and sheet.