amanda cunningham

Construction

When I watch my own mind slip from my eyes as pens
leaving nonsense as answers I couldn't say aloud,
it is the process of construction.
And I forget myself when a quiet rises around me
as smoke now does from these fingers-
a torch I doubt will burn
for one moment in wind or wet.

But under a bridge, against a wall,
from another's hands: a flip, a spark-
A light on those cradled days
that I choose to inhale the sun when I walk
or the buried midnights
when a bed is my coffin lined in paper, waiting.
A torch,
a light
burning memories I promised to be forgotten
into pictures of letters less painful.
They don't need to be spoken-
this smoke will rise-the addiction I never asked for
but won't be curbed.