Mason Watches Nino Fly Away

Mommy asked for a guardian angel &
I pointed my bony finger at you; I’ve known
your calmness was a gracias, a wishing well,
full as spring. Only you know how I speak:
in flutters, making loud the whispers of sol in
bowls of fruit. We hum joy like Christmas
mandarins brushing off bruises.
I hover, catch your big eyes brown as ground;
the family sees a deep breath, a near-death.
Your hand twitches, clasps a prayer of air.
Mommy sniffles when she thinks she sees you
giving in or up. You give yourself, lift fingers
but growing weak, reaching & resisting
caving into your blanket’s comfort, almost
hording its heat until a cold shadow blooms
before you, a draft only some feel—the honey
inside it lulls you like swamp-cooler droplets.
I say goodbye soft, oh so heavy, so soft—
let go now. Family hears an empty; I hear an
eagle or angel with wings & silk-screech—
it feels okay (the only thing I need) because
even though I’m scared of death,
I’ll keep you as my warmth, my blanket,
so neither of us is cold. I sit in your indent
of that empty recliner, this cobwebbed room
misty with memories as a rainy homecoming,
& I want so bad to make my own rain.
I know better than to cry my gold—

I knew you could refine the wind like a kite—
since our early days on Nicholas Avenue
I’ve also seen you fly when no one looked,
kiss our persimmons with silence, embrace
the trees we’re given, spill hymns vibrant as
lights lathering our home in dawn’s grin—
I can’t help but brush mine off while
the luster of a blue moon paints me in dusk;
I feel a light touch my raised arm hairs.
A sprawling shadow slips me a gust—your
ache & your blues shake me awake: my body
like Adam in that chapel, sixteen or whatever
but holy, each last breath an inch closer to
home, each hole a new place for luz to find,
& this is what I want for you: to see the light
of a closed smile in a loud life—
I’ve lived a pretty river, tides & all; I’m ready.
I am ready, my ears so blissed tears won’t
exhale. Rain lullabies. The clouds inhale me,
in a second, a siempre—too far to fly. But
even with the sky stretching cyanic & sublime,
I’m so scared of life;
yes, I’ll keep warm, your memory a blanket
—something to take with me into the blue
which looks so glorious only to us now,
a momentum like bikes ejecting us to asphalt.
I want so bad to be baptized out of pain. Now
still, it comes. I know better than to withhold.