Instant concrete powder
substitutes for the burnt remains
of my father.
Instant concrete powder
inside a glossy Bombay keepsake box
inside a shiny metal casket
inside a concrete tomb
inside an earthen grave
inside my mother's head
becomes my father's body
as she tries to appease her ghosts
by putting them in the ground
in a tomb in a coffin in a box of
instant concrete powder.
Through the air his ashes
fly, coloring my breath
for the last year and a half,
their launch unwitnessed by me
and therefore unreal.
The powder in a box in a casket
in a tomb in the ground
is real at least, though deluded.
And so I visit the spot
where the atheist Vietnam vet,
who violated me, my sister,
and our mother,
has his name engraved in granite
in the civilian Christian section,
with a scripture that promises,
even to a box of concrete powder,
that the unrighteous too can
hope for the kingdom of god.
