Will

Small red tin box sealed in shrink-wrap, cut open with pocketknife, pried apart, its goods aerate the office. I pluck white sliced chalky cylinders; let them simmer in my mouth. I exhale peppermint scent through my nose. Cut open the official letter. A map in letters on a white page. My teeth grind mints. Photocopies slightly off alignment, I blur lines. Equations disperse family through land documents, position each generation. I am only fourth in line. Some plots are gumbo after winter thaw. Sections stitched together with extended relatives. This ritual, personal death papers drafted. I am partial to this grassland; the place of deer marks and porcupine quills, ledger extrapolates history. I refold estate document, place it back into its envelope.