Steve Aranda Song for Adrian G. The horizon of your smile, spreading out like mountains across the fresh continent of your darkened face; that should have been enough. And the night blackened hair, curling and greased with the oils of lingering sacrifice, your small round belly, taught and boyish, made even darker by the sun, those should have been enough. Enough to keep you from their open mouths, From the hungry tongues Teeth as white as gashes, Yes, I remember the teeth, They wanted you. From the beginning the scent of your meat compelled them to dream of bonfires, stirred the cholera in their veins, never giving you a chance. I saw them change the landscape. Dirt was made into streets. Mothers wailed through the gritting teeth of skulls, singing of lips and rivers. Swine wandered, unbothered, bellies fat as sin, hooving through infants and whores. And you would learn to kill. The father’s enemies struck down By the son’s hand. Your song had no words, only movement, and the grace of your fight. An army of hands awaited you, heavy ones that struck like thunder, soft ones that told the sweetest lies of all. In the end the war in your blood defeated you. And when you fell, who kept track. Who took notice of the single tear, Who saw your hands Twin angels reaching out to heaven Sending a curse. A woman named Conchita, or Maria should have guided the arms of your heart with kisses, fed you with moons by the mouthful, together you should have danced to the music of falling bones. You should have planted an orchard of children, the dark hands of Mexico would have plucked them up one by one. Cradled in the arms of Guadalupe, they would have drunk the milk of corn, tracking the language of the sun. You should have purred them to sleep with lullabies of jaguars, their mother’s voice holding above yours like a flute. But mysterious as bastardized iconography, hungry as a rooting tree, filled with shadow and shade, you lived in the darker places, and self destruction was the only honorable way to die.