Burning Words

She burns all fifteen-hundred letters.

In ashes now, costly holocaust,

twenty-seven years.

She is a tree bereft of leaves.

Words, in embers.

Her eyes fix on the remaining sparks in the grate,

unwilling to empty the grid, layers of pages

each powdering into the one it rests on.

She waits.

Her stomach stirs,

tears well up

her throat aches with longing:

A feeling akin to kindling surges 

Ashes only remains.

Phoenix energy rises from the cinders

of these intimate missives. 

For a moment she sees his eyes float over her shoulder.

Soft and warm whispers 

fill the cave of her ear

their resonances linger,

tender tones, his burning words.