GESTURE

     by Bates Corlieu

Gather this for your winter. You were a gesture.
Not a shrug but a hand stretched waving,
Grass straining for why. You were a gesture. 
Before being tossed that jangled heap of keys 
And all the sorting since, you were a gesture.
So what you can’t die young. Brush away
all those years of ashes. You are a gesture.