Monstrilio

by Gerardo Sámano Córdova

believed that flower was my son reincarnated. One believes the stupidest things in grief. I spoke to the flower and called it my son. And then I laughed because how ridiculous—how cruel, really—it would have been if my son was reincarnated as something so ephemeral, frail, and beautiful. I killed that first bloom with one swoop of my hand. Dead again, my son could become something else: the shell of a tortoise, strong and ancient, or a hideous fanged creature deep in the sea where he’d see wonders even he could’ve never imagined.

JOSEPH AND I HELD THE urn together and poured our son at the base of the dogwood.

We didn’t so much exist as much as we haunted, and with no one else to haunt, we haunted each other.

He asked me to cry with him, but his sadness was his and I couldn’t steal it.