I imagine them together now, in a way that might seem childlike to you. She with her wavy hair tucked behind her ears, and he with those thin lips that disappeared when he smiled. They were just bone chips and dust in Ziplock bags the last time I saw them. I was surprised how different their ashes looked: his were brown and heavy, hers were light and soft grey. We mixed them together.
We threw white roses into the water, something I learned from the Brazilian goddess Yemanjá, via Africa. It felt ancient and important. The pounding surf washed the flowers up against our bare shins, along with the ashes, soaking our rolled up jeans.
Sometimes, when I think about them now, they could be calacas, the bony espiritos from Posada’s drawings. Mama could be Catrina, with her big hat and long gown. Pop could be wearing a scarf, smiling now without lips, driving a sports car. In my dreams, for years after Pop died, they were always hanging out together, offering me champagne, reassuring me. We took long train rides together, in which they inquired about my siblings like gossipy old aunts, and once Mama showed up to a party to try the brownies I had made, because she wanted to see what I’d done with her recipe.
I can’t say that I believe they are in Heaven, but I also don’t believe they are nowhere at all. Reincarnated? Maybe. I feel like their spirits are still somewhere fleshy and warm, like those sticky nights I spent with my first lover in Mexico all those years ago. The ceiling fan whirling and whirling, the sheets cool and slightly damp, our naked bodies entangled, sleep fractured, nearly impossible. We were floating together, but we were also part of that mattress, that tiled floor. The rest of the world had fallen away. That’s how I think it is for them now. Two lovers, alone at last.
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The writing prompt that inspired this piece was a “collected poem”: a poem created from many lines from several different poems. See below.
Grief
Anything you lose comes ’round in another form
Pink roses and white roses
those words were all that was left
Certain phrases, topics, must be approached with care
People are good
they offer up their pain
I imagine you
When you died
What’s unsaid is palpable as dignity, as death
All motion stopped when he died
Long-faced irises.
when you had to be helped on with your shoes
before you leapt off
Mums
Anything you lose comes round in another form
When grief sits with you
you hold life like a face
Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come
and giant sunflowers
I will love you
Pink roses and white roses
Anything you lose
again
“Grief” contains excerpts from the following poems:
“Cantaloupe,” by Lee Robinson
“April,” by Judy Bebelaar
“The Thing Is,” by Ellen Bass
“Moment of Inertia,” by Debra Spencer
“Making Things Right,” by Barbara Bloom
“Return I,” by Elisabeth Stevens
“What People Give You,” by Kathleen Sheeder Bonanno
“Unmarked Boxes,” by Rumi
The Catalyst 