To Make Color

Every morning, my grandmother cleaned the Fischer stove
in the back of the trailer, lifted ash in a shovel, careful
 
not to spill the white-gray dust. Precious, she said, her breath
smoking in the cold. Precious in winter's first lavender
 
not-quite-light—and you could smell it, the faintest acrid hint
of ash, a crispness calling you from bed. You could watch her
 
cap it in a chicory coffee can to stack among others, back bent
from a long-gone fever. For the garden in spring, she said.

Copyright Credit: Poem copyright ©2018 by Ryler Dustin, "To Make Color." Poem reprinted by permission of Ryler Dustin.