MALPRACTICE 

They’re donors

not doctors,

but don’t know it.

Their too busy grafting

their own wounds

on to us too see

that their condolences

aren’t a healing flesh.

They’re just not.

Because we’re not

burn victims awaiting

some new tissue

like a salve. We’re not.

But no one

understands this,

least of all us.

Loss looks different

on different people.

And so, kindness

in our case,

feels more like malpractice

than a cure, ‘cause we can’t

feel flesh that isn’t 

there to feel.

MAKING MONEY

Alloys from the past.
Wounds from our father’s.

They come as hand-me-downs,
as currency

we as sons learn
to re-mint

into something new

and untarnished,

a money

of our own making,

that we carry, in time,

like bags of newly mined gold.

SOMBRERO

Memory dons a broad sombrero

strung with blinking, colored lights.

It holds up a jug of red wine

like a victor brandishing his trophy.

It flashes a cheeky grin.

A banquet is under way.

And those gathered in the heat of June

will toast to you, feast in your honor,

sing out your praises,

call you by your name.

You are the life of the party, Padre.

Photographs never lie.

HONOR

I am solid.
I hold my ground.
I gleam in the light.
I am a citadel of crystal.
I am a semi-precious stone.
This is what honor looks like
when I excavate it from within.
Like quartz.