Clap When You Land

Of all the ways it could end it ends not with us in the sky or the water, but together on solid earth safely grounded.

But all I can think is that it seems wild to me that our family would let Papi fly alone again. As if dying alone wasn’t enough. Nah. I don’t tell Dre a thing.

I cannot fold any of their respects into my dress’s pockets. I cannot tie these respects together into a bouquet to lay at my father’s headstone. Their respects are quick-footed & I am sludging through this hardened mud of loss.

Such a funny phrase, pay respects. As if suffering is a debt that can be eased by a hug & a head nod.

So he created a theater of his life & got lost in all the different roles he had to play.”

I was an aspiration, a flame he wanted to kiss. But for her, he would have lit the entire island.

I want to hate this dead woman. For the way even talking about her twists up my mother’s face. This dead woman, who made my father visit, & have a child, & board a plane that fell into the ocean. I am slow to put the pieces together. I want to hate a dead woman, & her daughter who most likely hates me for making my father leave her in t

“Ships have gone down in this water, gold has been lost here, the banks have eroded, cities have been built & destroyed at its shores, tribes have crossed it & never crossed back. But the Mississippi rises & falls; it rises & falls. Everything changes, but the water rises & falls.”

I say: “Say you’re sorry.”