Listen: it’s raining ash.
The one holding his nose
tight in blueish kleenex
is your dead neighbor’s
only certified son,
heir to eleven thumbs
and a language made of
grunts. He’s born again
again, after six months
spent in some uterus
they say he built with three-
penny nails and schnapps.
Now on hands and knees
in the scant ash-choked
front yard (unmowed
since God knows when),
he’s a new devotee,
praying for house keys
or the raised spots
where he’s buried
his late father’s remains.
It could be worse is
what you almost say, not
that he’d understand
or even hear a word
with all the ash-plows
scraping East Yakima,
and the sirens his father
rigged with ninety-pound
fishing line to the Odd
Fellows flagpole for just
such an occasion. What
you do say (after you’ve
rounded up the children)
is listen: it’s raining ash.
Todd Smith 