Dust to Dust
Nevermind that keeping ashes
on the mantel feels ghoulish,
and comically impractical:
not just another thing,
a miniature memento urn, to dust,
but dust to dust—
I dread the conversational
Hara-kiri, not, that’s what’s left
of my brother, but, he died of suicide:
the chasm of silence following the leap—
so the cremains stay
in the office closet till they migrate
through no will of their own
to a moving box
I haven’t unpacked and likely won’t.
Copyright Credit: April Ossmann, "Dust to Dust" from Event Boundaries. Copyright © 2017 by April Ossmann. Reprinted by permission of Four Way Books, www.fourwaybooks.com.
Source: Event Boundaries (Four Way Books, 2017)