i.
I mean, he is dead, though
doesn’t this make him American
enough to demand the land
he was buried in is his?
Doesn’t this entitle him to break
bread with gods
whose names fill
the sky with anvils?
Or was he just buried
in random earth—
because I saw a truck
drive over his grave
like that isn’t how people
get cursed—like that driver
isn’t going to crack open
their jaw tomorrow & spill out
ratones, conejos, cucarachas,
& all their teeth.
ii.
Who’s to say this soil
is American anyway,
like have you asked
my grandma?
She once swore
the whole of California
belongs to her
mother & my father still
calls this dead man
Reino. That’s right, the whole
damn kingdom. Grandfather was,
after all, an unruly man
he once pulled his spine
out of a screaming mouth
& carried that hurt
until the end.
Who’s going to tell him
he can’t still reign
from the dirt?
iii.
The U.S. government
denied my grandfather
a military funeral,
denied they ever held him
against a gun
& called them by the same
name.
The official reason they gave
was my grandfather
did not join the marines
legally, & fine
but he still volunteered
to walk into any slaughter-
house with a crown
of bullets in each hand,
they could have
at least sent a flag,
or the name
of that truck driver,
or a throne.