Astros Mestizajes, 1

At the Grave of Virginia Trujillo Carrillo, 1935-1996

Death has whittled down
your mean view on life
so that now, in my dream
you are thin, young, and kind
more like my daughter than you.
It is the distilled sense
of loss when someone
you love dies that builds
flowers. Away
from your real life.

Your husband, my father,
rides next to you in eternal
dust, for that is the form
he chose. I have loved
both of you as I love
ashes, the insubstantial.
I have even gone as far
as this to take pebbles
from your grave to spread
in my garden.