Table of Contents
Upon Learning that I Am the 51st Most-Famous Person from Puerto Rico 1
Chapter 1
Radiation Vault 4 4
Meditation on My Cancer 5
Self-portrait not looking 6
Story problem 7
Still life w/ hands 9
After the diagnosis: meditation on the origins of "death's thin melody too (variations on an escalator)" by paul rudy 10
Some Lights Go Out 11
Parade 12
The canonization 13
Reason for not moving 15
War comes to the island 16
The seawall 17
Still life w/ wet gems 18
Another afternoon 19
Imaginary photograph sunset mother's day davis islands florida 2020 20
The Sky Is Like the Sky in a Painting by Pieter Bruegel the Elder 21
The Murder 23
The Trauma Sutra 24
Honky-Tonk Sonnet 25
Chapter 2
To My Wife on Our Anniversary 28
Swarm 29
The Church Gardens: A Walk 30
Love & the memory of it 31
Loom 32
Poem after a poem by césar vallejo w/ a nod to donald justice 33
Erasure 34
The Vacation Over 35
Chapter 3
Discarded Memoir Titles 38
Duck & Groundcover 40
Student evaluation of instruction: obituary edition 41
Appendix 42
Memento Mori 43
Requiem w/ Eye Roll 45
Benediction 46
Benediction 2 47
Meditation on the Italian Cinema 48
Still life w/ feet 49
Monster 50
Meditation on folklore: a coda 52
Family astrology 53
Markers 54
Obituary 57
Notes 59
Acknowledgments 61
About the Author 63