III
FUNERAL RITES
Elegy for My Mother
As a child I vandalized my grandfather
with questions, asked about the long whips
left by river snakes in the mud,
the sudden bones of birds on the jungle floor.
I cared so much about what was left behind.
Now, we are selling her last calf
because we can no longer take care of both
her animals and her land.
My grandfather smiled at the funeral,
joked that the little plot next to hers
would surely be his. Now he is serious.
We are walking the green of my mother’s farm,
and he shows me again how to carry
the calf on my shoulders,
so I don’t disturb her,
so I don’t cause her pain.
Fire Song
The wildfire happens
quickly. Direwinds
huff their enormous lungs.
The vaqueros watch
as the grasses blush
with flame,
and the throngs
of Brahmans stampede.
Yellowbriar, devil’s ear,
jaragua grass–
all belong solely
to this fire.
Without trees,
there is entirely too much sky.
Low low, says the tapir
as it runs from heat. Ruin,
warns a swoop
of hummingbirds.
The hot-breathed wind hisses
Who Who
as it spits and spins.
I look out over the fire line
and repeat my mother’s name.
Many songs of devotion. Many songs
of devotion
undone.
Medicine
My uncle could not find the witch
but the witch’s sister gave him a mash
of sweet herbs for me to drink.
I drank, but did not remember
that I drank. I drank again,
and each time I lost another day.
Until all I could remember
was walking with my mother
in the wild green of Santa Clara,
rope sawing into my shoulder,
a plastic jug of water tied at the end.
We plucked purple sage that day,
smoked ourselves, prayed. Prepared
our bodies for all that would come.
Ghost Story
As a boy I pleaded
with the river to teach me
its long and winding vowels.
In exchange I taught it
swear words, how to play games.
The night I stayed by its side
for hours, eight parrots
came to listen to us speak.
It was a long time before
the river asked in a low voice
if the children of the pueblo
had finally forgotten La Llorona—
the woman who drowned
her children in its deep waters.
Yes, I said. Forgotten.
It’s hard to lie to a river,
harder to lie to a river you love.
Make Believe
As children, my cousin and I once
dug into the side of our mountain,
a terrible brown work.
That morning we’d made the cold walk
to the hospital and watched
his mother for a long time.
She was unchained from her machines,
shrinking into ordinary.
It was our first death,
and we looked at our small hands.
But no, my cousin insisted,
these are not our hands,
they are bear hands.
And we walked to our mountain,
shaped our cave:
one meter, two meters, three.
We bears were making a home.
We roared, and shook off our human bones,
until angels howled like dogs
in the valley below.
Paloma
Primo, our childhood was river weeds
twisted into crucifixes,
El Chavo del Ocho on our old TV,
and grandmother’s parrot asking for coffee.
Primo, why is it so hard to talk to anyone
whose mother hasn’t died?
Come to my house tomorrow
and we’ll drink beer poisoned by lime,
we’ll lure a moth with our flashlights
and not be ashamed to see de...