The Ceremony Poem by Zoe Nyght

It’s cold out here. I like it,
back pressed against smooth cement
like sister’s breath on the windowpane.
I light a Marlboro firecracker
(reminds me of street blocks back home)
and with my ember-burnt eyes
always scanning inwards
I follow the spiral of fleeing smoke
upwards, messy and wild and
constantly shifting from the end of my cigarette
into the depths of the night, swirling regally
like the white locks of a gypsy woman
draped in purple cloth and gold chains that
clink with the sway of hips and
drumming off in the distance -
an apparition in wisps.

Musical melodrama,
your voice trails off like silk
on the phone, rubbing your heartbeat
against my ear. The Greek symbol for
infinite wraps itself around my finger,
echoing the sound it made when you gave it to me
every time you breathe - that soft plunking
of a coin being dropped in a wishing well
from hands crafted by lullabies.
I remember; it still turns.

Tracing circles in clean white sheets,
little boys and girls talk about
the playgrounds they’ve conquered,
the open cuts they’ve picked,
the cool night air they’ve swallowed,
and the other children they’ve kissed -
ever so gently, as if lips were fragile
and would chip off like ice.
To miss that warm blanket of skin,
that new sensation of firecrackers melting -
I wonder what that’s like.

The smoke still spirals
above my head like question marks in clouds,
dispersing to a place along the ticking horizon
where Muses roam in rampant fields of memory,
plucking stalks of baby’s breath
to adorn their silver manes,
never wholly truthful but golden with smiles.
I walk there quietly.