Ashley Roach-Freiman
self-portrait with arson
The thing on my mind is duplicity /
the two sides of a playing card. My mind bisects / a branch on fire.
Maybe if I could speak with words
instead of a smoldering house.
The moon calls me sometimes /
it says hang up and run.
The moon wears a complicated perfume /
wood grass and smoke.
You slippery twin.
You always get away from me.
You say watch the world burn.
You turn on the neon light.
But look: blue curtains edged
in a delicate lacework of ash.
Ashley Roach-Freiman is a librarian and MFA candidate at the University of Memphis, where she was formerly the managing editor of the Pinch Journal. She has poems appearing or forthcoming in Tinderbox Poetry Journal, THRUSH Poetry Journal, Smartish Pace, The Literary Review and Superstition Review. She coordinates and hosts the Impossible Language reading series in Memphis, TN. More about her can be found at ashleyroachfreiman.com.
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