SAILOR (BRIAN), 63, was a capricious drunk for most of his life and then built a six-room dollhouse for the child of his child complete with hovering heaven attic. Called his daughter's husband that drug addict to come, take me out of here and kill me five hours before he rattled and died. Scared child of his child too scared to attend funeral, pulls anchors from ships and hopes to find dead grandfather seaweed.
NEVADA, YOUNG,
I am become death.
At six you played in black snow
as the sky glowed in the dark
behind you like a marble quarry
of quick, multiplying ghosts.
You had a broken wooden soldier,
a black hole front tooth. It was so hot,
me cooking arroz in the kitchen.
Chilis in my cuticles, burning —
my fingers were never the same.
I watched you through the window,
the whole desert expanse glittered.
You never called me by my real name,
wailed, "Mama" instead.
But, bebé, I built your coffin,
mashed the aguacate down.
The green was gone, and now everything
was black, and the soul of it fell
to the floor. You always wanted to lick
the pit, and I let you lick the pit,
with all that dust on your face
and on your mouth, and
in the bathtub you became
the water, and when you became
the water, you became the earth.
Heard sitting on white chairs in the sun
perfecting vernacular, planting short consonants
into wet soil pots and watching long sounds grow.
Seen swimming in Vulgar Latin,
parting reefs and disintegrating coral with solecisms,
exorcising the demons from his sea.
Or was he bathing in preparation for white nights?
Perhaps a pilgrimage to his quantum self, where finally,
he hired a murder of mourners to vacate his shell
in a lingua franca caterwaul.
Please visit him in proper tongue
(mi manchi).
