Unreal Birthday

[TranquillityBase]

I need to hear others talk of him
for him to live again.
His friends proved it 
never mentioning him
in four hours of chatter 
that fell into my heart 
pitiless as stones
thrown into an empty pond.
He is history to them 
and my bitterness
sends me finally to tears.

Unreal birthday, death’s hide-and-seek
and never-find is the only celebration
permitted me.

Absence tracks me to my lair of words.
I look into the dark, see your ghost 
walking across the casement windows
out and back into night.

Felicidades, mijo.

v.3

Sixteen months without a son
has taught me two things.
Death is no accident and 
thought provides no resurrection.
I need to hear others talk of him
for him to live again.
His friends proved it 
never mentioning him
in four hours of chatter 
that fell into my heart 
pitiless as stones
thrown into an empty pond.
He is history to them 
and my bitterness
sends me finally to tears.

Unreal birthday, death’s hide-and-seek
and never-find is the only celebration
permitted me.

Absence tracks me to my lair of words.
I look into the dark, see your ghost 
walking across the casement windows
out and back into night.

Felicidades, mijo.



v. 2
You would have been 29

but death’s hide-and-seek

and never-find took that away.

Your high school friends gathered  

“in remembrance”

and I went, hoping  to see

you again in their words

hearing instead four hours 

of self-absorbed chatter that

fell into my heart pitiless as stones

thrown at a trapped dog.

Baffled, I went home

to sleep in the house where

you died.  Laying in the dark

I imagined your ghost

pass the casement window

out of and back into the night.

Felicidades, mijo.







v.1

Unreal birthday, death’s hide and seek



and never find is the only celebration



permitted me.



Absence tracks me to my lair of words.



I peek out into the dark, imagine your ghost 



walking across the picture windows



out and back into night.



Death is no accident and you don’t come back to life



just because I think about you.



Your friends proved that beyond the reach of my hopes. 



Four hours of chatter,  terroristic talk of the living



falling into my heart pitiless as stones



thrown into an empty pond.



I kept hoping that they would say your name



and you would reappear at least for them.



They never mentioned you.



You are history to them and my bitterness



is the end of their games.