Where the Ashes Went

by Brett Rutherford

Drunken half-brother blurts out
his memories of the dead.
Having no funds
for plot or stone,
they dug with bare hands
a hole for grandma,
right next to grandpa’s grave.
No one was looking
as the spade went in,
disturbing the thick turf grass,
soft clover, tough dandelions,
How deep? Who knows?
They dug until it seemed enough,
then in went the ashes,
and the little bone fragments
from the paper bag’s bottom.
No marker, no paperwork,
no money spent
on the damn undertaker —
serves them right.
At least they would always know
where grandma rested.

As for our mother,
she always said, laughing,
“Just throw my ashes
mid-bridge, right into
the mighty Youghiogheny.”
Vaguely she knew how the Monongehela,
then the Ohio, then the Mississippi
currents might carry her
(unless she silted down).
“At last I’ll get to see the world,”
she said. That’s what they did:
the ashes, in the humid air,
fell in a straight line
to the dark and rapid waters.
The inedible fish
flapped with their fins
to spread the ashes.

So now when someone asks.
“So, where is your mother buried?”
I am able to say, with some assurance,
“A coral reef somewhere
inside the Bermuda Triangle.”