Lines 1—7

"What I Would Ask My Husband's Dead Father" begins with the speaker addressing her husband's dead father directly. The man has been dead for over a year, but the family has not yet found a final resting place for his ashes. The ashes have been "sifted and smoothed" into a small white box, and the lid has been tightly shut. The makeshift urn is kept in a closet, which becomes the man's resting place until the family decides what to do with his remains. The speaker suggests some possibilities. The ashes might be scattered in the woods "among pines and firs," or perhaps they could be scattered over the water in Puget Sound in the Pacific northwest, where they would be borne along by the tide.

Lines 8—16

The speaker then says that perhaps this is one of those things that cannot be decided. She reflects...