<Dia de los Muertos>
From white arcades and glitter of graves,
Skulls and marigolds form altars in the dark.
By the cathedral,
It is only a flight of paper ghosts,
Where children with bone-colored kites run against a pale wind.
Drifting toward midnight,
The Moon’s belladonna feeds mute colors of lament,
with scattered eulogies of autumn doves.
Coming out to music of circling streets,
Plagiarized dreams and mezcal of bells
Wash past your face in scent of fruit and agave.
In drowned silhouettes,
Young girls bring flowered devils, bread, and small apples of dawn.
At the end of the old world,
Along a river of dancers,
We come carrying baskets of fire,
as failed gods to a forbidden land.
Skeletons hang in the trees,
And corn leaves wreath the bowed head of the savior
with bright masques of lace and ash.
Across the candled cloisters of Mexico,
Eternity is written in sand –
Torches paint an old robe of memory –
And the living continue to sleep with the dead.