Dust to Dust

Nevermind that keeping ashes

on the mantel feels ghoulish,

and comically impractical:

not just another thing,

a miniature memento urn, to dust,

but dust to dust—

I dread the conversational

Hara-kiri, not, that’s what’s left

of my brother, but, he died of suicide:

the chasm of silence following the leap—

so the cremains stay

in the office closet till they migrate

through no will of their own

to a moving box

I haven’t unpacked and likely won’t.