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Family drinking and funeral language merge into a lyric where sustaining the night becomes indistinguishable from letting someone die.

The handwritten title gives the page ritual gravity, but the poem itself is intimate and accusatory. It watches a family convert grief into continuation, with Scotch and irresponsibility becoming part of the atmosphere of moral exhaustion.

Under the funeral phrase 'AshEs to Ashes Dust to Dust', a wake poem confesses complicity: 'I was just as irresponsible as the rest: / Sitting there-drinking wine to her death.' The family 'wanted it to go on / To make of the night her life sill alive', and the closing couplet names the dead and the fuel - 'Her name was Fay / Scotch was abundent.' Grief converts into continuation through drink; the confession is stated, not apologized for. Source spellings 'sill', 'abundent' and the handwritten title capital 'AshEs' are preserved.