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death

Who Is This Guy?

Now that I’m dead too, just like the living dead on TV, 
fat chance that the merely living will be saved 
by doing what they did when I was merely living— 
nailing their doors shut against me, 
hurricane-proofing the windows, 
positioning snipers at the embrasures.

Boneyard

March 2, 2020

Like heat he seeks them,
            my son, thirsting 
to learn those

he don’t know
            are his dead—
some with his name

Ta Prohm

March 2, 2020

A stifling heat—the air heavy—
and all around the loud, wet forest 
knotting the gaps in its own sound.

A peace long earned, then broken;

Reaper Madness

When your four-year-old begins talking incessantly about death, there are a few tactics for dealing with it. One is curiosity. Why do you want to die? Why do you hope you die today? Why do you love to die? Why do you want to kill yourself? The four-year-old doesn’t know what death is, not really, and so he cannot truly answer the question.

On the Piney Woods, Death, Bobby Frank Cherry, and Me


Sometimes I wander around wondering
where my mother is. The family buried
her next to her own mother. Out there,
the hard pines darken early. Anyone
can hide and not be found for years.
Bobby Cherry laid low there. The girls came
in his dreams. You can’t live in those woods
and not be haunted by what you’ve done.

Parasites


Para Mamita Juana, Papita Pablo, y Padrino Reden

Alma lost an eye when her house collapsed under ash. 
Milo severed his thumb por una bomba
Juana married John in Las Vegas.
Ernesto washed dishes in Hollywood until his skin cracked 
while impaled children lined El Mozote. 
I eat pan con café de palo for breakfast while David Bowie sings labyrinths 
to the tune of leather.

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