Under the Morning Sun

By EVELYNN COFFIE

Mom died this morning.
I plastered her will
to the yellow wallpaper in her room.

The protocol.

I remember the day we devised our future
wills. We sat on our dusty beige couch,
dragging the ball of our pens messily
across a sheet of notebook paper.
She told me she wanted to be cremated.

No coffin. Never a coffin.
Somewhere magical,
she said,
to sprinkle my seasoned ashes
across a frozen lake.
Vast,
she gasped,
between the sea and the sky,
a home among the blotches of gray clouds,
where I am the wind wafting
through the palm trees at night.
Somewhere,
she chuckled,
between the cracks of bus seats
where dust and mildew hide.

There’s a funeral Friday,
but I didn’t plan for that.
She wanted to be cremated.
Her body burning inside a bolted
vault. I hope I see her again.

Take a bus to my birthplace,
she rested her head on my shoulder,
back in Yuma to climb to the crest
of the Fortuna Foothills.
Spread my ashes across the ashy red sky.
She raised her finger and pointed
to the mirror in front of us.
Some dust will get into your eyes
while you stand above a pond
or under a palm tree at night.
She raised her head, smiling
while observing my face.
I’ll just want to say hello.

I’ll stretch my tongue
into the wind and let her ashes rest.
Let the taste of nostalgia sit.
Let the memories ooze
from the amygdala,
in clusters.