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Grieving in Two Languages, though I am
Monolingual
for Jim Sagel
I’m calling to you, bro, up in Spanglish Heaven
where bilingual angels cruise with custom wings.
Your eyes sure twinkled here, on this crazy planet.
Your voice was a laughter voice, Riverside Drive.
Maybe you cried in two languages. We never saw it,
with a cheerful front, a deck of cards in a dark pocket.
Your stories filled up the dusty viejos who told them,
back filled, like you’d haul in topsoil to a worn out field.
Your books are still breathing in small bookstores
that don’t put much stock in sex and violence.
Children read you, cinnamon toothpicks in their mouths.
A low rider drove through you slowly at night.
Now we all have hydraulic legs, boom box hearts,
air brushed minds. You were the quietest
conquistador, conquering with sweet affection,
writing the world as flashed in a rear view mirror.
Made me a writer just by the right nudge
toward my own instinct. You gave and gave
then gave up the ghost. Went to that other place,
took refuge in the mystery. Misterioso, no?
Our sadness, the spring frost that takes the apricots.
Now I know why the viejas shake their heads.
I've been shaking mine, swearing out loud,
loca in two languages. I'm left behind
to make lyrics out of truck tire rims. I need you
for advice on the phone, to deconstruct chimichangas.
To discuss the virtues of deep frying and gossip.
You remind me to buy the Rio Grande Sun. Española
was your bible. Are you really gone, my dear familiar?
Can I say amigo, me, in my impossible Anglo accent
with honky affiliations? It is no pleasure to write this
without you to laugh in two languages.
Maybe those pachuco angels could climb their ladder
to deliver our prayers of esteem, in case you don’t know
how much you were loved. We hold you highly
as you have held us. As you have always been held.
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