prosthetics a poor excuse failed attempts at some connection desperate for warmth as cinders rise we claim to feel the fire's heat (the referent is gone) only echoes now wind in the trees salt of the sea smell of the earth all lost to us fading to nothing cinders floating upwards from a fire unseen we feel their heat but the fire is not in them just as it is not in us cinder is the house of meaning crumbling as soon as we touch coming from truth fading to nothing. fading to nothing.