Broke the Reflection

I dropped my mother's ashes
down into the water

I wanted them to sink down
but they just floated there

as they broke the reflection
of the sun

it reminded me
of Oahu in two thousand one

it was the sixtieth anniversary
of the day that lived in infamy

when over the U.S.S. Arizona
I would only photograph with my mind

the flowers I saw
dropped from another survivor

that floated along the water,
breaking the tension

of the oil still rising
from that sunken battleship

my face was ashen
as everything, too, still

broke the reflection
of the sun