Poem #52 of 365

Mama is burning up her past
and it's the love that she's turned
to ashes.

- Yes, they're my letters, and i need
to get rid of them before I'm dead.

- There's 300 already burned. And
300 more left to burn, some of them
five pages long.

I hold back something as i hold the phone,
it's a lump or a tear or a throb or a word.

- They're my letters, i wrote 'em for daddy,
and he can't read 'em anymore, so nobody
else should read 'em.

- I saw him every Thursday, and every weekend,
and i still wrote to him.

Is the end of love letters the end of love? I don't
ask her, but I ask myself, recalling the bundled
and boxed things he & he & he & he once wrote to me.

In that moment, I began to hate fire & flame in my mother's hands.

copyright 2007 tammy melody gomez