Ashes

Susan P. Blevins

When you asked me to mix your ashes with your
recently deceased wife’s, I said I would.
When you asked me to scatter you both in my
rose garden, I said I would, on that one fine day
when you moved on to join her.

I sifted your combined ashes around my
happy roses, forking in your joint substance,
singing a prayer for you both, accompanied by
choir of strident blue jays and chatty squirrels.

Little could I imagine that ever after, on
sunny days of peace and birdsong, I
would behold you both rise up from my
flower-bed, like spirals of smoke from

Aladdin’s lamp, twisting and turning,
embracing one another and your newly
achieved freedom, haunting me,
becoming my prison of remembrance.