Atlantic Ashes, Petty Thievery Poem by MARINA GIPPS

The ashes that float away
from the end of a lit cigarette
turn into flies, millions of tiny flies
that gnaw at my skin
like last week's lunch meat.

I am never going to dream again.
Green apples make you suffer.
Blue bed sheets make the sky
look pale by comparison.

The embers of a minute flame
in memory of lightning bugs I murdered
on a lawn as a late evening child
(to decorate an old tee-shirt from the Sea Horse motel) .

South Beach: 1974, a boy waved to his grandmother
from the diving board-just before
his miraculous disappearance. The mask he wore
was heavier than that of a clinician researching
all of the dangerous fissures of this universe.

The grandmother, re-knitting old sweaters
under the sun, quite grave on her vacation,
dwindling in the sorcery
behind the movement of windchimes.