Ground Keeping

A lifetime spent hoarding
the dead because we never buried
 
you:
jar of ash,
calcium crumbs;
left over fragments
 
we scattered.
I scattered
 
with you.
 
Those hills.
Sage scented, oak shaded
in 1987. Now you fertilize
chlorine-sanitized, over-manicured
backyards wealth built
 
but I still tend
one quarter acre of
urban animal remains:
ancient shoebox caskets beneath
mounds of dirt and fur and claw that
 
reach back
fill the center,
hollowed  hallowed—
 
brittle bones beneath my fingernails,
twenty five years of your ashes in my mouth.