Pops Dead Four Months. Remembering Pops Taught Me to Float on My Back. Watching “Moonlight” on My Delta Flight After Leaving Abuela Ana’s Casket with Abuelo’s in Santiago, Dominican Republic.
I’d be
lying if
I didn’t feel
their hands
stacked
and
securing
my neck
and
spine.
I got
this ease
with grief.
Cry
all I
need to
not
all I
want to.
Deep
breaths.
Cups brimming
with water.
I feel
furthest
from
Abuelo.
The god
I had
then
ain’t
the Ancestors
I have
now. I keep
baby’s breaths
for everyone
I hold in
the heaven
of my brain.
Gorilla-taped
and lining
the sarong
my sister
Monica
gifted me.
I tell you,
if
a flower
could
be
a casket.
My therapist
helps me
see
I got
things.
Things
about
family
and
consistency.
How love
should’ve
and
should
look.
Everything
isn’t
my fault.
I love
people
to see
what
brilliant light
love
could’ve made
of me.
All I am
is from
grief.
Defense mechanism:
joy and
smile and
laugh and
dance and hope.
Thinking
about
getting
a baby’s breath
tattooed
under my eye.
Imagining
how fresh
it’ll look
every time
I cry.
Thinking
about how
it’s been
four months
since Pops
died
and the
four ulcers
they found
in Mommy’s
stomach
the
morning
of Abuela Ana’s
viewing
and
how Mommy
couldn’t
come
to
Santiago
to
see her
parents
be
together
again.
I tell you,
if death
isn’t
what
makes
a family.
