Anniversary

Two small boxes full of dead boyfriend.
I saved just a few ashes.
The rest of him in Italy, somewhere.
Buried in the family plot
which I refused to witness.

I carried him there like a courier,
in a zinc-lined box labeled BIOHAZARD
instead of in a proper coffin.
Embassy regulations. International red-tape.
(Never mind my tears. Or feelings.)

And him burned up just because.
And the family screaming.

Too much. Too much
to think of or remember.
But this would have been
eighteen years.
Half a lifetime; or a lifetime.
Over.