6.27.17

	AN ARRIVAL TO
the true meaning of my name in a language i do not know
was never taught by father 	& though that means as
little as the ignorance of a moon does to a flaring star i
search for the meaning of my name in every baseball player
that shares it 	in every misspelling & i have learned that i
am only the second of my name, not even a junior, & that
this denial of an identity is all that I need to earn one
i have learned that in sanskrit kala or kali means black
& kala or kali also means a fixed point in time – a
death – a unit of one hundred forty-four seconds or the
one hundred forty-four black reflections of myself that
stare at me, disappointed, when i practice my broken spanish
in the mirror 	i have learned that my childhood nickname
of papi came from mi bisabuela  that she cried for her dead
father & the next day i was born & joined her in the crying
i have learned the greatness of time & the greatness of
black are one & the same 	that my second godfather
was Heraclitus 	that it is normal to feel deathly homesick
even when one does not have a place to call home
have learned it is okay to call my own skin home
have learned that the most painful way to sleep is
to be curled in the shape of a border or in memory
of a father 	that a sleeping body is only the
premature inscription of an elegy & a dream is
remembered only as the lyrics of a dirge & that
my lungs do not resent me when they do not work
that they are as tired of – as i am 	that it is
okay for something not to have a mean
-ing 	that the suffix of -ing means the
expressing of a verb	therefore that it
is an action to have meaning 	that it is
an action to be learning 	to be speaking
to be creating & to be breathing, that my
lungs grow tired of performing their duty
& therefore that it is okay for me to grow
tired of living	& that the only thing in
this world that must have meaning is a name
maybe that is why i cannot forget my
one hundred forty-four dead siblings
why i cannot live without wondering
how my name will be remembered
after i die 	& i have learned that
i want to be remembered in the ekphrastic
& buried beneath a tombstone written
in the language of my father