Dean Kostos uses the tight repetition of the ghazal form to create a powerful meditation on boyhood and growth.
—
Unforgotten
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 singed kites & birds,
attempting to forget the flames
that cleansed nothing but branded
loss: fleshy rosettes of flame.
He breathes into tarnished mirrors,
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.
***
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