free from body and pulse. You suffered no longer—
no more collapsing lungs, yellowing nails
and tongue, sunken cheeks. The furnace fires
up around your withering body, brittle bones
now ash. In the car, I carry the box of you,
small, compact, grasping you in my lap,
oh, how once I was a child in yours. My step-father
drives us down the bumpy two-way road
when suddenly two birds fly across our windshield.
THUD. One bird makes it, the other does not.
He and I both jump and cry out. I grip
the box tighter. Despite my fury, spring unfurls.
As jacarandas and cherry blossoms dot
the landscape, I go on lonely runs, searching
for birds, searching for you, my mother, somewhere,
a hint of your essence in another form.
The hummingbird, the kestrel, the quail. Wherever
you might be, to uplift me. Instead, you come
to me in a dream. A boy in a library is reading
a book to you. You look up at me and smile
warmly. Reassure me that you’re doing just fine.
In two months’ time, my father spills you
into the San Francisco Bay. We watch as dark
soot does a ballad with the wild hair of wind,
then dissolves into the choppy waves. We wave,
holding each other in the cold, salted skin to skin.
