For years, men did this for me—
my father, my husband, my partner.

I’d blame it on my weak upper body.
I can’t dig a hole for spit, especially

in the clay that masquerades as soil
in my back yard. And that’s true.

But when the dead squirrel appeared
on the deck as I cleaned up around

the downed pot, mysteriously broken,
that had gently cradled Dick’s

mother’s ficus for so many years,
I imagined a wild chase between

predator and prey that resulted in
the ends of two living things.

The ficus I could resurrect, plop into
a new pot, but the squirrel, I realized

upon closer examination, was long
dead, really more of a flattened pelt.

I ran through the list of hole-diggers
I might summon and decided to give

it a go myself, watering the hardpan
by the north fence for a while, letting

the water simmer and sink. Then,
taking up the small shovel and,

with no thought for my newish
lavender tennies, I began to dig.

You could, Clifford whispered,
just put it in a plastic bag, Toots.

Then in the garbage can, my father
echoed. But I remembered each

of them digging a spot in different
back yards to bury the dead things:

a beloved pet—usually a cat—or
sometimes a bird fallen from the sky

or a snake stopped in mid-slither
with tender placement, tucking it

gently into a blanket of soil. Did this
sprawled squirrel deserve any less?

So I muddied my shoes and applied
my sole to the shovel, digging slowly,

working around roots, not very deep,
but enough, setting the creature to rest,

an impromptu Day of the Dead ceremony
a few days early, a small blessing

for the remembered
from the rememberer.