Poetry Reading

I was emptiness
I was the dark cloud of my movement,
A bubble in a sea of dead fire.
Ivan Lálic, "Young Woman from Pompeii'
You asked me
why I had chosen to read
the poem of the girl buried at Pompeii,
and, really, I had no idea,
then,
my dear lava, my white-hot ash,
and you were so concerned for me—
When I think about it,
really, I'm quite touched,
my cold lava, my snowstorm of ash.