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Memento Mori B.J.T.
by Briony James

I have one picture, saved from a friend's phone;
A bad snap, staring at a whited screen,
Blank space amid things I no longer own,
Your face in profile, pensive, caught between
The images' flicker, your inner stage
In the crowd of that pixilated past.
Your eyes gone empty as an unused page
Left blank, reflecting mirrors at half-mast
As though dreaming of parts and lines to learn,
Of new parades and peoples ripe to pen.
Your rapt mourning another's final burn
On proscenium here, wondering 'when.'
Which came unexpected and quiet to make
This digitized moment my last and your wake.


First published in the 2018 Altadena Poetry Review
and nominated for the Pushcart Prize by the editors of that anthology.


 

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