while i do love
the taste of unhealthy
t.v. dinners for every meal
and i do enjoy
the slobbery salisbury steaks,
extra salty ramen noodles
and those little tuna cans,
it's great to come home
after a long emotional
roller coaster week
and have abuela cook up
some arroz con garbanzos
and unas buenas chuletas,
get the latest family gossip,
comments on how
el gobernador is being
the biggest pendejo
in power at the moment,
watch the news,
see how many were killed this week,
and just shake our heads
as the island crumbles into Detroit like
madness (at least we've got great beaches),
ah but yes,
abuela's cooking,
what i need to forget
the girl with the pretty hair.

In dark dreams
I walk again
those empty
hospital corridors

with their dull lights
and smell of disinfect
and death
in those dreams

I look for you again
my son
passing by
the blanks faces

of others
looking at
their eyes
for glimpses of life

or concern
or such  
as humans
sometimes have

I go by
room after room
pass porters
pushing

the occasional trolley
by the various
side wards
passing by

the bright lights
of hospital shops
in the dream
I am hoping

to find you once more
sitting there
on the bed
your back turned

your head lowered
but this time
I am hoping
for a healthier you

my son
not one so ill
so lost
in this dream

sunlight shines
through the window
of the small ward
a bird sings

not that dull curtain
the murmur
of voices
the usual limbo like

air about the place
this time my son
I wish to find you well
looking at me

with your own
familiar smile
not that haunted
expression

and tired eyes
that draw from me
a steam
of deep felt cries.

your heart was an enchanted forest where you hid from
all the pain you've been through, where you kept yourself
sheltered from everything that might have hurt you

your mind was the wooden cabin you decided to live in,
out of sight from everyone, living in your own dreams
and forgetting about everything you've once wanted

and the blood that flowed through your veins
was the water you decided to drink from when all
was lost, when nobody could find you because they
all knew that deep inside the forest nobody survives

and you drank it all as the cabin burned down
and waited until the outgrowths of the forest were cut down