Mother’s ashes take the wind
on the levee, in back of a plantation
where she’d love to have played
the lady of the manor, a nouveau-
Scarlett, with her long hair
trailing like moss through the live oaks.
–excerpt from “Scattering the Parents” in A Light Dusting of Breath by Donna Pucciani (Purple Flag Press, 2014). First published in Off the Coast.
Mother and Daddy bump down the Interstate
in the trunk of a silver Toyota
speeding through Hattiesburg, Mississippi.
Their ashes slept last night
in a star-smitten Memphis
after dinner at the Catfish Cabin . . .
–excerpt from “Last Journey” in A Light Dusting of Breath by Donna Pucciani (Purple Flag Press, 2014). First published in Journal of the American Medical Association.
Tagged burial, cremation, death of parents, disposal of ashes, funeral
Donna Pucciani, Poet 