For my father’s sake I say goodbye whenever I leave the room. The ghost is just a prop, the weight is theoretical and everywhere. My father has always spoken of himself as though the kiln moans only for him. I’m a stenographer of elegies for the still living; this is an unremarkable fact because everyone has an inheritance. There’s a theory where only what is visible is in fact alive; until that you’re dead. Now I am far from my father & what is there to say he is alive besides my mother? My mother who never leaves my father’s side. My mother who I am far from too. My mother who my father says will live forever. My mother who will not tell my Abuelo that he has cancer for fear it will upset him. My mother who will never retire because of what it has cost to keep me alive. My mother who loves her son who failed out of college. My mother who always calls. My mother who didn’t call to tell me my tio had been dead for a week so I wouldn’t fail all my classes again. My mother who loves me enough to keep me in the dark. My mother who wants simple things; pajamas, my father’s laugh, a son who remembers the scar he came from, men who speak as though they will live forever. My mother who wants to spare us; a vase full only with the living. My mother who I used to pick flowers for from the sidewalks, little dented things I saved from underfoot. This too is inheritance, these mercies that were not mine to give.

III. THE INEVITABLE URN

He is still alive

so I hadn’t considered

the necessity of the urn

its design   its unimaginable

weight will someday be him

I would pick a charcoal glazed

until my own face distorts on

his new surface as it does in life

I have my mother’s face  her mercy

but these are no doubt    his eyes

that I will one-day shield

as I let the breeze take him

OBAMA WANTS TO BE CLEAR ABOUT HIS LEGACY

Let me be clear     as a water stain

on glass     nearly window but not

bulletproof     I want some things

to always be constant     Legacy

is muzzled by history with good

reason     Let me be clearer still

a persistent film of dew on dying

grass     Opacity is a form of treason

I gut envelopes with a thin gold

and sometimes my own dead face

unspools and men in suits rush in

because it would be a tragedy

if I remembered I was someone

who could die      Let me be clear

my blood necessitates repetition

I am gone   I am gone   I am gone

I am grateful that the room was

round or I would have dented it

with my screams      Gratitude

is a kind of violence     I say thank