The pyre smolders wetly
under the tin shed,
from which
grey
afternoon
rain
still
drips;
echoing
a family’s
grief.
sifting through
grandmother’s still-warm ashes,
my fingers taste
the wood-smoke and sour-milk scent
of funeral rites;
i blindly grope for the largest shards of bone,
to fill the clay urn
with the remains of a life.
down by the
clear-cold river,
gathered to bid farewell,
her daughter holds up a
carpal fragment:
“such strong bones at
ninety-two
mama always drank a glass
of milk
after her evening peg”