Lynn Aarti Chandhok

Transgression

I’m told it isn’t done, that it’s bad luck
to bring the ashes back inside the house.

So, keeping some to carry home—abroad—
is bound to bother someone. I can hear
the customs man now: ‘‘Ma’am, what’s that gray powder?’’

I do it anyway. It seems important
though he’d been in my garden only once
before it was a garden really. Still,
he’d blessed it.
                        There, we only leave the dust
to rivers, never earth. But I suppose
transgression takes whatever form one needs
to satisfy a longing or a hunger
or disappointment: He had come so close
to living what, to me, seemed like forever.

The time is never right. The cotton bag
hangs like forgotten groceries on the doorknob
all winter. I proclaim the ground ‘‘too cold,’’
though we’d dispersed his bones in icy water.

In spring, my daughter helps me spread the ashes,
singing, ‘‘It’s going to make the flowers more lovely.’’
And I believe it does. The bleeding hearts,
as hackneyed as it sounds, do overrun
the sweet alyssum and the ferns. Even when
I clip them to the stalks, they bloom again.

It’s months before I notice that the bag’s
still hanging, empty, from the kitchen doorknob.
I realize I can’t touch it, though I think
I’ll take it to the hills someday. The sun
will bleach it perfect white like those small flags
next to the mountain temples. Soundless wind
will rearrange it, lift it, and, in time,
unwind the edges to a prayer shawl’s fringe.
In time, then. But the time is never right.