The year the An*sazi Inn burned down

Because in a room with popcorn ceilings my grandmother

lay dying. Because that was about the time I wore out

The Black Parade on scratched CD. Because I was too young

to know the beetle-skin of grief. Bad excuse. I knew ghosts

that skimmed the desert rim: earth-surface graves, shells

of prairie dogs and eagles on the highway, in the heat.

Because if you’re shit-scared enough or brown

enough, everything can be an omen. Because to get over

the mountains, my grandfather never stopped running.

The anxiety that precedes certain death. Maybe it buzzed

in the AC, familiar-sweet and river-cold. Through our veins,

it begged for just a light. Once-flickered gaze. Then, a flame.