Christopher "Rooster" Martinez

The last time I saw you

/

 A virtual family reunion. A wall of muted wails. 

Everyone takes their moment and machines run a breath through your small body.

//

The second to last time I saw you:

I don’t recall when exactly. Before Thanksgiving, I think, and I dropped by your yellow house. 

I heard you sleep in the front room now--more manageable. Your bedroom: an unmoved, unchanged, mausoleum the last 15 years. Why bother making the bed lonely?  Queen-sized, too large and heavy. I hugged you and said “goodbye, Little Lady.” I snapped a photo to send  to my mother. You wore a Six Flags shirt with Wonder Woman on it.

///

The last time I do remember seeing you

I wandered off into the neighborhood. Awashed in psilocybin. 

The way the world breathes content in its endlessness is a dare to let life go. The center of the universe emits out of  everywhere. I walk under overcast skies, until the sun looks at me and I burn. Thirsty, I  realized how close I live to Yellow House. 

I pass San Fernando Cemetery #2. A grave digger sleeps on a yellow backhoe as still as a bed after a day of filling the earth with us.  I arrive to your absence. I use the manguera like a boy baptizing a 36 year-old man. Preparing to leave and continue on, you arrive like mercy and I am a semi-crazed, wet dog. You invite me in. I sit. We dissolve in discussion  like communion wafers on the tongue. You tell me exactly where everyone is in their respective orbits. I down tap water from a mason jar. Before I leave, you ask if I need a ride. I decline. Opting for the air and the steps ahead. 

A virus rages on unseen, outside. The world refuses to hold us delicately. 

The sky overcast again, and I put one foot in front of another. 

Goodbye, Little Lady. 

Bio

Christopher "Rooster" Martinez is an educator, writer and spoken word poet from San Antonio, Texas. He is the author of two poetry books: A Saint for Lost Things (Alabrava Press, 2020) and As it is in Heaven (Kissing Dynamite Poetry Press, 2020), as well as an upcoming poetry book, Mexican Dinosaur (Write About Now Publishing).  His work has appeared in such publications as Huizache, Voices de la Luna, Button Poetry, The Huffington Post Latino Voices, and others. Rooster earned a MA/MFA in Creative Writing, Literature and Social Justice from Our Lady of the Lake University and teaches English at Palo Alto College.