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.