Ashes

She was found face down beside her bed dead long before they kicked in the door of the deteriorating house that reeked of cat piss that had soaked into the rotting planks of the bare wood floor the plaster ceilings falling in surrounded by mounds of detritus boxes of odds and ends that had been bestowed upon her by those she had in their last days cared for Every eye dry at the memorial service not a single tear shed for the mother who had decades ago been abandoned to raise three children on her own and had died alone Under the full moon in the backyard of his home he had been so proud to be able to buy only a few months before she’d planned to visit that same day where she would now be a permanent guest we transferred the ashes mixed with the powder of pulverized bone from the simple wooden box into the ceramic urn I had helped him to choose decorated with wine colored roses fearful I was witnessing my own future