Another Story of Ash
       

I am carrying my brother,
bone, skin, hair, teeth, nails
in a box. Our dead call for ritual,
but since we had given up on a god,
I brought him home to the Little League field
and scattered some of him in the outfield
grass. The first rain will wash him away,
but I'll remember a thousand summer days
where locust trees crowd the right field fence.

The soot and ash days are gone
with the jobs that made them. My brother
knew this game better than he played
it; he's left the life he screwed up.
I remain, lucky. No good reason
to outlive a hard fastball, and everything
this broken life threw at us.

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Copyright © 2021 Rick Campbell All rights reserved
from Kestrel
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission