Tucked into the green folds of a rainforest,

you rode like a gobbling passenger on my
back

as I scrambled up steep banks and rainwater trails,

searching for guavas and monkey trees.

At night Arenal sputtered, the volcano roasting

the moon till it glowed red like the
sky

I’d left behind in LA. Where the tanks

of my country tore up the yards of my neighbors.

You won’t remember Watts, the riots, or the

policeman who held me face down in the grass,

refusing to believe your mother was my wife. You

don’t know how everything turns strange,

impossible, how Lee Morgan’s trumpet

crackles like the first time, teasing out
the boy

I was, ashy knees and fists. How difficult, this

unstructured whirl through memory, taking
me

back to a kitchen, to my grandmother—light, like

you. You’d remember her if you’d met. Her
voice

was jazz, like yours when you’re telling stories.

She’d leave the boiling air of her
bedroom

to curl up with me whispering the places we’d go.

with every feathered breath I knew she
lied

but I listened to that music and believed.