My daughter’s ashes are now spread in places she loved, although I have a hard time remembering when she loved anything but drugs, and lived anywhere but on the streets.

We did our best, I’ve often thought to myself and even said aloud as we spread her ashes in a mountain meadow. You could have done better, another voice always answers.

“Keep your chin up,” a friend recently said, “You’re not responsible for her choices in life.”

I read that the first printed reference of “keep your chin up” comes from a 1900 edition of a Pennsylvania newspaper. The remainder of the quip is, “Don’t take your troubles to bed with you – hang them on a chair with your trousers or drop them in a glass of water with your teeth.”

teeth full of
caps and fillings.
those restive nights after
viewing photos of the places
she loved 

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Published in Contemporary Haibun Online, 19:3, 2023.