From “Small Sargasso Mountains” [“If the temples donated”]

If the temples donated their columns, birds would have a place to string the hues of their songs. A record player and childhood albums. Every day of the week, Mom played the same one to wake us up. It used to be the whistle from the paper mill, but it closed after a strike. The bells still call to mass. A bow was left forgotten on a field. The arrow fallen before the target with a red center, like the wound in your head. The haze didn’t let us see what was coming around the curve, but I could make out the tops of the evergreens. My eyes twisted ropes together in case we fell off the cliff. Stalks of henequen growing on the decks of ships. When the loaf of rye was broken, a peaceful heat spread out to the other grains. Lorenzo played the violin in front of our grandfather’s crypt in the Spanish Cemetery. It was the Day of the Dead. We brought him conchas, a can of root beer, and a book of poems.