Logging
by Meridith Gresher
In the victory haul of death,
he gathers heather in great heaping mounds,
a marble chess set,
a bone china woman full of hairline cracks and Ceylon tea,
a teething ring still iced, a sparkler, and
a widow maker that felled him, the faller.
His arms could hold not one more
sound once the limb set to lay him
at the altar, worshipping. He shuffles
past his broken head, body mashed as a grape underfoot
bleeding into
an afterlife oasis. One immobile breath
leading to eternity.
One hollow misstep met a redwood,
an old growth, and turned the table spilling
memories like a map of Scotland:
a new age guru who married
his daughter on the moors, back home
a game his grandmother played and wished he'd learned
instead of dominoes in Jamaica Queens, New York, age fifteen,
a burn on the palm of his hand, the first fourth of July,
he had citizenship and his wife,
an older version of their grandchild.
There is surprisingly little to her, he thinks,
as if he never really saw her. Slight he would call her.
There is surprisingly little for her to remember of him. As if
he were always a face in her distance.
On hip (as in cool) points, she glides with ease
as she makes arrangements: flowers, casket
and a piper to play Amazing Grace (he hated the song),
as if she'd been anxious for her role as arranger
when they cut the wedding cake.
He'd bargain with God if he knew, now, what to ask or what to want.