Will the afterlife be sweeter than jubilant pomegranates? – a poem by Ray Ball

Will the afterlife be sweeter than jubilant pomegranates?

            I turned
into my father’s 
            ashes—

A pillar— 
bright light
            faithlessly 
glinted off its surface.

My father could 
not abide a woman 
            who spoke 
above a whisper.

Lupine grew 
in the cracks
of what was. 

Ray Ball is a history professor, an editor at Coffin Bell and Juke Joint, and the author of Tithe of Salt (Louisiana Literature, 2019) and Lararium (Variant Lit, 2020). Her poems have been nominated for Pushcart and Best of the Net. She has recent work in descant, Glass, and Waccamaw.