Ashes

My Lenten journey begins today. It may be depressing and somber, but I am ready.

This year, I will mind my manners.

I won't get to an Ash Wednesday mass today because of my teaching schedule, but I am fasting. Hour 20. And I will throw up a prayer or two on my solitary drive home tonight. I want the smudged cross of ash on my forehead, but I won't get that, either.

I once wrote a poem about Ash Wednesday; it was naughty, I suppose, but so did Timothy Liu and his was published in a book. In his book, next to all his other published poems, so what now?

It's the incense, the burning, the sacrifice.