hear.t.breake.r.

i was so looking forward to your visit, seeing you for the first time in 15 years. my blood. my cousin. the only one i've got, i mean, the only one i get to talk to anymore. i saw us roaming up to tahoe and down to san francisco, maybe over to the ocean. they had us pinned for black sheep all those years and we survived. i am closer to you for it. how my heart breaks to know you cannot come. what a crusher. okay. so i'm angry, so i'm sad you called it off. these are just feelings. the most important thing is your health. it's god's will.  i am close to you, all these miles and miles away.

author at home

yesterday. october 5

we rode on out to see the cousins down along the river road, into the delta and god was it beautiful, America on an autumn afternoon. we paid respects to your mom along the way. the sun would leave the cemetery sky red hot on its descent in the west. i never knew your father was an artist until you showed me his studio deep in the lot, behind the garage. there was a portrait of a beautiful woman on the easel, maybe the beloved in the beloved years? he is 94 now and lives with sofia the cavalier. they are pulling up the carpets now. the orange tree what with its lime hybrid is beginning to bear fruit. we shared baked beans and fried chicken and i listened to the story of his coming to this country, up from Mexico, hoping on some work and a couple hundred dollars to take home. a man convinced him to hop the freight train and go north, to Indio. from there they decided on Sacramento. the man got drunk one night and disappeared. that was three quarters of a century ago. old sacramento was a community of migrants. i wonder about the spirit and where does it go when somebody is no longer around?