horse race

You can just set that wherever

Where should I put these, your father’s ashes?

You can just set that wherever

Blue rug on blue carpet

Where should I put these, your father’s wishes?

You can set that there dammit.

On your way in, knocking the coffee pot

Ruined rug on the black carpet

Where should I send these, your father’s ashes?

Oh, was that today, dammit.

The door squealing like a slaughterhouse,

And you knocked the coffee pot,

Blue rug wounded with brown

Whoopsies, were those your father’s ashes?

You know, those can go just anywhere.

At 3pm on Saturday, the first Monday of July,

You threw in the door to the house

Bumped me—I held the coffee tin,

Blue but the words hilariously faded to read

OOPS, the S and the C were missing.

I had my father’s ashes in it, and

They flickered almost everywhere.

I could see you waiting in the old Pilot.

At 11am in July, in summertime, in August.

It was hot, and you came in the door like a soldier,

With orders to seize the remains of our father.

Blue rug, blue robe, light blue wallpaper,

Curiously browning and curled from smoke indoors.

Where will you take them?

I spit; you took them out of here.

Z.D. Jones is a writer and poet studying at the University of Chicago. Their work has appeared in Michigan City Review of Books and Cult. Magazine. Their work is forthcoming in Noise Magazine.