Ohio Ashes

She’d kept the pewter dusted and displayed since 1969. A verdigris had leached out of the urn nevertheless. She had been hard on him, had forgiven little, but felt much closer now. The television became a corner coffin, its screen a penumbra she often spoke to. She had interred it in 1974 after Nixon left office “Disgraceful.” She had said both to his ashes, and the ancient T.V. set. A part of her husband remained to dwell with her, the homunculus felt like a much-chewed jawbone rattling in the urn. She began to dream. His tweed suit walked from its closest, to make love to her, sleeves caressed sensitive pockets. When she awoke, she smelled of mothballs, Brylcreem and Old Spice. The television came to life. the blue monochrome face of Nixon appearing, he was crying. his permanent five o’clock shadow damp with tears. “Sorry Mabel.” He spoke. “You should be.” She retorted hotly, yet her heart skipped a beat as the screen died. She was troubled. She broke the glass front of the TV placing her husband's urn within it. The urn grew greener as if it were full of Ohio River water. She saw herself as a young girl swimming in a river as refreshing as a lime phosphate. The urn glimmered as new images surfaced, a tenderness gnawed at her. Her late spouse teased her with fingers plucked from her own lap. He brushed her lips with threads of gray. Her bitterness toward him become a speck she kept in a jar of Pond’s facial cream. “Just in case,” she thought.