Bones

A poem

I take my ghosts where I find them

The discolored spots on the cherry drop leaf from my parents’ breakfast room in 1970

Curled finger imprints in yesterday’s coffee grounds

A sock I do not recognize

Errant butterflies in the wrong season

A new bud on a dried out stem

I live where leaves turn to rust months after fall

And pine needles clump terra cotta patios like a thousand wishbones

I wish I had found your star for Christmas

Haphazard colored lights strung wide in that front window

from frame to frame

Instead I cupped the dirt we placed on your velvet ashes

And saw one thin green blade coming up