my father collected horror books
over the course of his life,
the kinds with skeletons
and vampires
and demons
crawling out of the earth
looking for souls
to swallow
he amassed an entire library
and carted them
from house to house
as we would move from California
to Colorado to Michigan to Pennsylvania
then to California again
“these books are priceless,”
he would tell me
“all first editions
signed by the author.
they are your inheritance”
but when my father died
from acute alcoholism,
and my mother was desperate
to leave their final house behind,
an appraiser told her
the books were worthless
all those years
carting them around,
fitting them into mylar covers,
placing them behind clear glass drawers
like museum exhibits
to gaze upon
in wonder
and delight,
they weren’t worth a thing
and all those skeletons
and vampires
and demons
were carted to the dump
and my father
was burned to cinders
that my mother later spread
at an old campsite
along Diamond Lake, Oregon
she poured him
from a Ziploc bag
and he carried with the wind
away from us
our final chapter,
our inheritance,
not worth the paper
it was printed on
