the dream that my door
won’t lock 
                        & my patient is dying
                                                              I only studied
bio in college  
                                    dropped chem                 a night class 

the phone rings it’s my sister the doctor
                                                                            she wonders
                                          what to do 

about mamá
                          ten years dead this October
                                                            has cancer what options
do we have

in the U.S. alone, 1,132,206 people have died 
                                                           of a much-denied virus
hospitals overwhelmed
                                         an American thing         this denial

                                                                          did you know 
in some countries people rent 
                        graves ten to twenty years in the Netherlands
                   three years in Greece                     grave diggers 

pray the bodies 
                            have skeletonized before raising the bones 

my siblings and I buried mamá’s 
                                            ashes in my eldest 
                                                                  sister’s yard along 

                     with some wild                                
flower seeds
                                 I don’t know if they’ve bloomed yet

                                                                   papá once insisted 

                                                    his be buried with mamá’s 
now he says he doesn’t 
                                        remember 

                                                          her          he remembers
                                    his paramour
                                                              the love of his life (?)
the one he never
                          threw down the stairs

I want to ask a pastor
what it means
                                              to honor one’s father
                                                              ask my father’s sister

in the dream someone’s stolen 
                                                my dining room 
                                                                          table 
nothing left but decayed 
                      floorboards and a couple
of holes

           to walk means to fall through a gap      
                                between the floor and the ceiling below 

                                                                                 my sister  
calls again wants to know 
                                        what to do about mamá 
                                                                        ten years dead 
                       and has cancer