Do you remember
that first poetry book?
Poemas de Otoño
     de
           Rubén
  Darío.

Do you remember when
you borrowed it?

“It was the first book
she ever read
         out
     of
            pleasure”

Your mother said.

It was the last one too,
wasn’t it?

Because you are gone now.
Gone forever.
Gone with no coming back,
gone with no reply,
with no promise of an
“I’ll meet you again”

Nothing.

You are no longer there to console me.
There is nothing to cling into.
No hope.

No hope except for a shallow dream,
the empty promise of the afterworld,
the holy gates.

I’d be religious
just for you.

But my brain was never made for blind belief.

So I’ll pull deidities aside
and grasp into poetry,
in a hope that
if heaven can’t be real
at least I’ll bring my demons
into earth.
Into paper.

Into
ink.