-ito and then -itoito,
our joke, the Spanish diminutive
to make something smaller,
but how much smaller can you be, Armandito,
than a speck of ash settling on my shoulders?
Your bullet holes weep, alone and lonely.
On the ranch, you taught me how to lasso a chivo,
with the unforgiving grace of rope. Some nooses
cinch tight around a life not ready to give,
youth held in abeyance. I imagine
your fatherless son. At lunch, you and I taught
each other to pray in disparate languages,
but violence is a word carried across borders.
On the morning drive from Corcoran to Shandon,
I pass all the little farm towns in between.
This is the California you and I know, where the grass
withers in undulations like yellowed tongues
whispering No mames guey. Slowly the sun rises,
slowly we disappear into smaller versions of ourselves.
POETRY January 7, 2022
Elegy for Armando
Jordan Escobar is a writer in Jamaica Plain, MA. His work can be found or forthcoming in Willow Springs, Colorado Review, Southern Humanities Review and elsewhere. He has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and the Best of the Net anthology, and been the recipient of a fellowship with the Martha's Vineyard Institute of Creative Writing. He currently divides his time teaching at Emerson College, Babson College and working as a professional beekeeper.