2 poems by emerging poet Georgina Ashworth

ASHES 

It was impossible for you 

to collect dust in your living.

Now your whirlwind years of youth 

have settled here on earth. 

Now you sit somewhere, 

in a vial made of plastic.   

Perched in a cupboard,  

gathering particles. 

You have no grave to turn in 

at the thought of this. 

Cerebrally unforgotten, 

engraved in our lifelines.

But we forget that these ashes 

are the most tangible remnants of you

We remember you 

in a hundred more ways than dust. 

Your body is still, 

sifted down to a fine and peculiar grain. 

Your soul is anything but dormant, 

alive and lifted up. 

I’ve said it over the years, 

gently I probe our parents,

we need to scatter you, 

in all the places you loved. 

In all the ways of letting go, 

this is the last. 

REFLECT/DEFLECT

Wide eyed

and birdlike, 

you look at me.  

Searching upwards,

graze my neck  

with your needlepoint fingertips. 

Nails dig into my temple 

trying to tug out the part of me  

that can’t look away,  

trying to separate the two of us 

with the glass intact.

You could replace my collarbones  

with fish bones  

and I would still be strong. 

Wind my spine around your fingers  

and I would still stand tall.  

Here is the only place 

that makes me feel

like I am shrinking 

and yet 

still, 

invincible.