Adobo Criollo Sergio Antonio Ortiz Rivera

we stand shoulder to shoulder at the wake… days of long rain

Quilts, Flags, and other Wrappings I started the quilt when the only reminder of civility I had was a stuffed doll whose button eyes fell off. Sewed while bathing under the moon’s eclipse and watched you throw my porcelain spoons— a collection of gifts, against the wall. I stopped stitching when you drove that bulldozer in sight of all those present at Jose's welfare funeral just because he was gay and my friend. I glared at the tangled patches of quilt as they threw me into a paddy wagon took me to jail for protesting that unwinnable war. I climbed into bed even as Allen lay covered with Kaposi’s sarcoma to calm both our fears, his and mine. Studied you when a signature to keep your only brother         from becoming homeless made you shudder at the funeral expense if he died while the blotch of endearment you gave him was still warm on that piece of white insignificance. Then I added the names.

Mr. Morris Mr. Morris was a tenant in my house, and a friend. He wore the night on his skin, a panther copiously sprinkled with stars draped in spider webs. After a long day's work he’d sit by the phone in the kitchen and counsel dying men I’d never see. When the virus spread and independent living was no longer an option he wouldn’t complain, show fear or pain, even when I’d rush him to the emergency room. It was in a sweat lodge with Mr. Morris that my feathers dropped as he rose above the cornfield like a vision. 

Lucas We met one last time before his corpse was washed.   I couldn’t get past the odor of medicine, the skin and bones talking from the wheelchair stopped me cold.   Lucas?   Lucas… I didn’t recognize the proud man I once knew. He said: Come, give me a hug.   I held on to a chair worried I’d faint, but I couldn’t betray the hope invested in an embrace. He found substance in the gathering of friends. I know because I am acquainted   with my sins, and all the ways my fears have killed.