Ember and Ash
by Stacy Cowley

We met in the hospital after Seth's second death.
A crash; his car skidded on ice
and hit railing, then ground, then rock. He died in flames.
I was his nurse -- and soon, his confidant. He cracked
me up, joking even as we replaced everything from his toenails to his heart.
Before he left, he told me, "I'm in love."

I had never died, nor ever been in love
When you deal every day in death
(even temporary death), it freezes your heart.
But his jokes, his smile and laugh -- they melted the ice
and stirred a part of me I thought broken, or irreparably cracked.
I gave myself over to his flames.

We honeymooned among stars, watching Olympus Mons shoot flames
and buying souvenir trinkets to commemorate our love,
then settled a lunar valley, nesting a home in cracked
fissures with sweeping starlit vistas. Years passed, and death
visited me at last. I went to sleep and dreamt of ice.
I awoke to the beeps of machines, Seth at my side. "It's your heart,"

the doctors said. So they replaced my heart,
and we flew back home. But the lunar cold cut deep. I longed for flames.
We moved to a tropical clime never touched by ice.
In our new home, I craved new life. Together, aflame, we made love
and made a life. Even a world that has nearly conquered death
sees the miracle in birth. We named her Fiamme, and cracked

bottles of Champagne to celebrate. But our miracle was cracked:
Fia was born with an embryonic brain, a struggling heart.
Within the week we lost her to true death.
An unformed brain leaves no sentience to save. The flames
consumed our baby's body. We clung to each other; our love
the heat I needed to ward off the encroaching ice.

I held tight, but the ice
had tighter hold on Seth. His voice cracked
when he said he had to leave me. I cracked too. I hit my love.
Then grabbed a knife and stabbed. Covered in blood, I kept stabbing; his heart
stilled. I sat for hours in his blood. Later, I cut out his heart. The flames
of anger left me. I felt the chill, the long-buried, never-forgotten freeze of death.

Surrendering to ice, I found a frozen slab and laid on it his heart
to keep the cracked flesh pristine till I could consign it to the flames.
I gave myself as well. With obliterating fire, I joined my love forever in the scorched embrace of his third and final death.