The bones are chalky wind 
that expose the oak leaves'
prickly dry white backs,
their spines and ribs reminding us 

of our own dry, white bones,
turning up someday in a UPS box
at the home of an old friend who, 
after signing for the package, 

has to sit down a moment,
then make another pot of coffee,
and stare at the urn for a long time,
turning it around, and thinking 

of pulling off the lid, spilling the 
crumbling bones from the 
carefully labeled plastic bag onto the kitchen table, 
and running his hand through the dust.

Filling his cup and thinking of times
he shared coffee with the dust on the table,
he wonders if he's doing it 
again.

He thinks of pouring a bit of coffee 
onto the dust, thinks of sprinkling
a bit into his own cup, thinks of 
licking the dust on his own fingers.

Then he shudders, 
and laughs, knowing the dust 
would be laughing now too, 
if it could.
                        

“When granddad was still
moonshining down in Bluejay,
or maybe Whitby,
he'd bring liquor in a jug
home on a Friday evening...

and ask me, 'Zelphy?
You want you some of this here?'
kindly as a joke,
thinking women wouldn't take 
to drinking his corn liquor...

but after a time
I begun answering, 'Yes.
Yes, indeed I would.'
and he'd a'be laughing and
pour a glass for him and me...

and I'd set a spell,
kindly pretending to drink
that awful moonshine
'til I could make an excuse
to go back in the kitchen.

And under the sink
I'd always kept a quart jar
to stow the liquor.
I'd pour that old liquor in
and fill the glass with water.

He knowed no different
when I come back in the room
with my water glass.
He'd watch me a'drinking and
next day, tell all the menfolk,

'My Zelphy can drink!
More than I can! More than you!'
And the men would say,
'Herbert, don't be telling tales.'
But your granddad believed it.

And that was enough.
I kept a'filling the jar
one glass at a time.
But t'weren't to get shed of it.
No. I'd use it for payment.

Once the jar was full,
I'd take it to the sheriff
and give it to him
so's he'd not come for granddad.
That was our agreement then.

'Course I never told
your granddad this, on account
he'd a done beat me.
That's the way it was done then.
Now he's gone so I can tell.”
                        

Earthmother fashioned
a blade from mountain.
Now,

a razor-sharp, icy-white monument
to divine dysfunction
slashes the green horizon.

“That'll be the last time 
he stays out drinking
with the moon,” she says.

She got custody of the kids.
He got a restraining order.
We got the Himalayas.