Division

 

My father’s ashes bloom

as I pour them into a jar

once used for pickles,

the smell of spice and brine

embedded in the lid. He

liked his food “sharp,”

with a kick—black pepper

on oatmeal, hot sauce

on everything else, years

of smoking having blunted

his tastebuds. Now his dust

clings to my hands, settles

like spilled flour on my granite

countertops. How did I end up

in possession of his remains?

 

His stepdaughter, a woman

I met only twice in

thirty years, the eldest

of Wife Number Two,

the one my father left

my mother for, wrote to request

a portion so she and her kids—

who call him “Grandpa”—

could make a special trip to the lake

he loved, scatter him where

he’d taken them sailing

and for ice cream and pie

and full family time

every summer of their youth.

 

I knew a different man

than the one they remember.

He worked late, arrived home angry,

spoke rarely. Family vacations were long

hot days in a crammed

station wagon, siblings bickering,

our private miseries disguised

by covert slaps and jabs. Hotel pools

never cool enough, ice

the only thing we got for free.

 

Yet every time I smell pipe smoke

I reel, spun by a need

to pinpoint the source

of this longing I was foolish

enough to think I’d outgrown.

 

Now I tighten the jar lid,

rinse my hands,

sponge the countertop,

the messy dust, the blowback,

the unburied residue of love.