WEBVTT

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And on that topic
of ghosts, just very

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accidentally, this
poem is titled "Ghost."

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But it's not a poem.

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It's actually-- I'm working on
a series of nonfiction pieces.

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They are 300 words or less.

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And I call them "bielitas,"
little stones, little rocks.

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Those of you that grew up
cleaning beans for your mother

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know exactly what I mean.

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You pick out the bielitas
and you throw those away.

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And I thought, so
many of these pieces

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were tiny throwaways
from the memoir

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Butterfly Boy, so I thought
I'm going to bring them back,

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resurrect them as bielitas.

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So, these are non-fiction.

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"Ghosts."

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"My brother Alex tells me he
saw a ghost in the hallway

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last night, a boy
wearing a baseball cap

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mouthing to himself as he
leaned into the bookshelf,

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as if trying to
make out the words

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on the spines in the dark.

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It is 5:00 AM, the
time of night when

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Alex rises to piss,
to lumber along

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the cold floor from his
bedroom to the bathroom

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at the end of the hall.

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It's the only time he
regrets not having slippers.

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It's the only time he remembers
all about the icy concrete

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beneath his feet.

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When he stumbles upon
the boy, my brother

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is shaken out of his
drowsiness and it's

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his hands that feel clammy now.

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But the boy doesn't
realize he has

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been caught in the
mischief, escaping his ghost

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world to take a dip in
the realm of the living.

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So, my brother gives him
the universal-- psst!

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It's understood in both
English and Spanish,

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and in the language of
the dead, apparently.

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Startled, the boy snaps his
neck to look at my brother

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and then scurries into
the darkness, vanishing

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through the wall at
the end of the hall.

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He tells me this
on the cell phone

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as his truck crawls
across the border

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on his daily international
commute from Mexico to the US.

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I'm listening to the
honking of my homeland

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as I look out my window in
my eighth floor New York City

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apartment.

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I tell him I believe.

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I am certain that a previous
tenant died in my place,

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that the spirit roams
the room in search

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of the comfort of its bed.

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We are both displaced,
my ghost and I,

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and therefore have
been adequately matched

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across the dimensions, just
like Alex and his ghost,

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because they are both
border crossers."

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