The dead yawn from their armchairs
and survey the living over the rims
of their coffee mugs, filled with roses
and the ashes of morning clouds.
You're doing it all wrong, Johnny,
they say. You're doing it all wrong.
At night, they put down their daily bread
and, wistfully, stretch, glancing at the clock.
They dance through the halls and down the stairs
to a cotillion on the river. They cry,
bathing in their petty sorrows,
laughing at their strange bathwater.
(In la casa de Los Muertos, Johnny
paces, curses, sips at brandy mixed
with melancholy, wills himself into
a stupor before he slips up the same stairs
to her room of ribbon and lace. She pretends
to sleep while he fumbles, curses, shames.)
Los Muertos return before dawn to pull blankets
around our trembling shoulders, to kiss us
good morning again, to watch our lips pucker
and move, to whisper forget-me-nots in the ears
of the living, to return Johnny's daughter to his
arms,
and to return their nighttime worries to the shelf,
and to dust afternoon crumbs from their clothes,
and to close their eyes.
