An 800-year-old cathedral
is burning to the ground.
The world is in horror
that things, too, can die,
though we thought them
immune or immortal.
We thought beauty could save,
or fondness, or all the photos
we took and took.
But the spire is collapsing,
and the roof. A black skeleton
against the metal-bright flames.
Nothing can save you
or any other thing.

The mitochondria in my cells
are burning their last.
Powerhouse trinkets
from my mother
and the mothers before her.
I’m the end of them.
Even if I’d had children,
it would have been a dicey thing:
you duplicate yourself,
inexactly, inexpertly,
and throw those other selves
into the world like sparks,
aiming them at tinder.
Maybe they catch and flame.
Maybe they dull into embers
then ash. No exemption
from extinction.

But still I would have liked
to have a daughter,
the way my mother has me:
a surprise, less a copy
than an homage.
Our love is also a feat
of architecture,
beautiful and built,
fragile and will fall.
No reconstruction possible,
which makes so harsh
this absence of replicas

Sian M. Jones received an MFA in fiction from Mills College. Her work has appeared in 3rd Wednesday and Lammergeier Magazine, among other publications. In her day job, she writes as clearly as she can about complex code. She occasionally updates jonessian.com.