My Uncle’s Ashes by David Spicer

Some of us suffer insult after death.
Like stammering Uncle Bob, who died
of cancer after my wild-eyed sister welcomed
him to stay. His chance for a friend, she rebelled
against their mad clan of mean drunks, disloyal liars,
and butcher-knife siblings shunning him for serving
time twice for theft. He painted her portrait with oils
she bought him, and she cooked him his favorite,
shrimp scampi, but a year later she dropped  dead.
He entered a hospice, and now he’s a sad box
of what we all fear, waiting years in a shed
for my youngest sister to carry him to a final home he
won’t know: thrashing waves under cliffs where she’ll
spill him, resembling a furious sky’s gray, falling flakes. 

About the Poet:

David Spicer has published poems in Santa Clara Review, Synaeresis,Chiron Review, Remington Review,unbroken,Third Wednesday, Yellow Mama, The Bookends Review, The American Poetry Review, Ploughshares, Gargoyle, and elsewhere. Nominated for a Best of the Net three times and a Pushcart once, he is author of one full-length poetry collection, Everybody Has a Story (St. Luke’s Press) and six chapbooks, the latest of which is Tribe of Two (Seven CirclePress). A new full-length collection of poems, Waiting for the Needle Rain, was released in early 2020 from Hekate Publishing.