Before my dad’s funeral, I watched
my mom fumble in the trash for a Xanax
she dropped. I helped her find it
buried deep at the bottom under coffee grounds
and other discarded things.
By the smell, the trash hadn’t been
taken out since he died. I sifted through the stuff
he threw away, still rotting there
though it had been a week: fruit, food wrappers,
cigarette butts, old meat. He was gone, but the trash
was still there, breeding life, something
from something else. I found the pill under
it all, and I handed it to her with a glass of water.