After you died
I wished for your spirit to fill the room
like a gauzy fog bandaging ether around me.
Waited for the lamp to turn on and off again,
by itself; a meteor zenith before dawn.
Your flannel shirt: epidermis; your untuned
guitar: La Malagueña1 dusty in the corner.
That year, I baked you pan de muertos2
until anise and orange swarmed the house,
fed fire to more candles and copal3 than
the Cenzontle4 has songs, the nopal thorns.
A professor once told me that religare
is Latin for “to reconnect,” as if you were
a god, and I was clawing up the oak tree
in our backyard, hoping to pounce on the moon.
1 La Malagueña Salerosa is a popular Son Huasteco love song from Mexico
2 Pan de Muertos is pre-invasion sweet bread baked for the spirits of the deceased
3 Copal is aromatic incense resin used in Mexikah rituals
4 Cenzontle is Náhuatl for the Northern Mockingbird