Patria

for my father, José Alcalá García

The salute
of this poem
rides open

to a shotgun —
I carry grief
blatant

as propaganda.
My father’s name
lifts

the hammer
bucket
brick

to eye
level
& makes everyone

a bit uneasy
for what’s
to come:

a parched code
a cracked
body

’s final test.
It’s a Dallas
of suspicion

a ramshackle
conspiracy
of origins

that hides
a mother
so central

to the narrative
and fuses
time & again

melancholy to elegy
to bring the madre
patria back

to civil war.
This ditty
like Annabelle Lee

holds the beat
every foreigner
can tap his foot to.

But whose feet
will be put
to the fire

for a democratic state?
When lost
in the sway

of our sorrow?
the flag
of our own names?