To Make Color

Every morning, my grandmother cleaned the Fischer stove in the back of the trailer, lifted ash in a shovel, careful not to spill the white-gray dust.Precious, she said, her breath smoking in the cold.Precious in winter's first lavender not-quite-light—and you could smell it, the faintest acrid hint of ash, a crispness calling you from bed. You could watch her cap it in a chicory coffee can to stack among others, back bent from a long-gone fever.For the garden in spring, she said.