Lee Potts

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The weight of what I’ve forgotten

After I had my ashes
to ashes, I felt a need
to stick around. Turns out
it's left to you to work
out where to go.
What’s a map without
a body. I can’t even nudge
a candle flame against
its flicker. I no longer have
the language of the living.
I can’t remember any
prayers or the names
of all the flowers I planted.
Following stars like sailors
do. The constellations
that make themselves
known are all my own.
Constrained to a long
slender darkness.

Lee Potts is founder and editor-in-chief of Stone Circle Review. His work has appeared in Glass: A Journal of Poetry, The Shore, The Night Heron Barks, Rust + Moth, UCity Review, Moist Poetry Journal, and elsewhere. He is the author of two chapbooks. The most recent, We’ll Miss the Stars in the Morning (Bottlecap Press), was published in 2024. He lives just outside of Philadelphia with his wife and daughter.