Unforgotten

By Dean Kostos

A child steps from a silhouette of fire,
pleating paper into egrets of flame.

Tattooed with smoke, his selves a duet,
he grows into a statuette of flame.

He releases the singed kites & birds,
attempting to forget the flames

that cleansed nothing but branded
loss: fleshy rosettes of flame.

He breathes into tarnished mirrors,
coaxing embers from regret's flames.

Voices splinter like lightning, igniting
words' clatter: castanets of flame.

Dean pleats his ashes into a boy
who emerges, forever bearing the debt of flame.