Bog-o Dog Din had a ridiculous bone which he loved and slobbered. His owner was a scruffy kielbasa kind of man. His hair was moving south, down to the chest and testes. His wife was away so now he never shaved. He was bald flat out. She picked that name, Bog-o Dog Din, and he didn’t like it. But Bog-o Dog didn’t mind. He just slobbered and loved that bone so much he summoned a ghost with it. The owner went outside, tee totally snockered, to the cracked veranda and yelled: Oh what the hell. Fuck that. That’s ghost!

The ghost said: howdy, howdy, here’s lookin’ at you. The ghost was from way south the Rio Grande. The ghost used to rent the Velour Room of Señora’s saloon and he hustled aces downstairs. The ghost lost faith when the first booger-boy gunked an iPad. And he regained it all when the boy became a better dad.

Ghosts don’t smell, you know, so Bog didn’t notice cowboy ghost. He just kept slobber-loving that bone, which summoned a second ghost: the ghost of Alaín Reád. [Here my husband spelled out the diacritics.] This ghost was first brigadier general. This ghost couldn’t help but scour each and all Napoleonic biographies, trying to find his name. He searched for those tiny ticks but only found Pía, Astría, Ramón.

The owner plucked white heads from the gardenias and hucked them at the ghosts. He said: shoo, shoo, shoo. Contrition hit those ghosts, and they flickered to make your temples ache. They tried to remove their hats, but their hands went through; they tried to bow but they kept going and twisted around themselves. They treasured life, they said, that’s why they died cursing death and begging for life. And that’s why they came here, they said. Because life is love and love is life and here tonight is ten tons of it in a two pound bag. And they kept on about hotspots for love and spectral whatever.

The whole time, Bog-o Dog never stopped with the bone, even as the ghosts bumbled on. They went on and on. They talked about those they loved: How she stamped loose nails back into the floorboards, or how badly he danced the tarantella. But they saw the owner’s mind had gone elsewhere, so they grew four times as big. [Here my husband straightened in the hospital bed.] If we had your time! Then we could tell them right. For us, everything in the way: war and class and machismo. And name a prejudice, yes. But this new, living world lets you. You can, my god, my god… And they rose into the highest branches with jealousy.

Of course, the owner couldn’t express his love any better. But the ghosts didn’t seem to know that. They didn’t know he’d haggard his wife, always playing big boss over trifles until she snapped. A month ago, she was almost home from a one-woman vacation, and he texted her the water bill: See? Those showers add up. And she bought a new ticket and kept buying tickets and hadn’t returned.

The ghosts couldn’t see the hundred or so drafts he’d written. His inability to add together a sorry, plus that he loved her, plus that he crumbled without her, and all that plus mean it. They certainly knew how much he meant it: more than anything. I love you. I love you! But how to say it right? You never seem like you mean it; it always seems like rhetoric, as much a number, a hustle, a way of pronouncing.

It started to rain. Finally the bone-loving dog looked up and began a soft, low caterwaul. The ghosts saw the owner below was paler now plus colder; they understood wires had been crossed. The owner called: Bog-o Dog Din, Bog-o Dog Din. Then, when they were both inside, he went one by one and closed every window of the house. He sat at his desk. Soon, he felt, so he’d give it another whack. Anyways, pretty soon…

But the bone got left outside, that’s important—that ridiculous bone under a kind of moon. You remember, the one reflected in our bird bath? When you put your hand under my rump, how you’d never done till then, and that whip-poor-will called. He just kept beep-beeping and shitting and splashing in the moon? [He laughed.] That’s the moon. [He pointed forward then took my hand.] Hear that night across the storm? As the rain moves in. It’s very fine; it’s how we had it. And those two, maybe three ghosts, they get to close their eyes too; they get to imagine better ways to say it too because the night itself was so fine.

Can Ciénago Da tenía un hueso ridículo al que amaba y babeaba. Su dueño era un chorizo desaliñado; su pelo se mudó al sur, bajando al torso y testículos. Su esposa estaba fuera, y ahora nunca se rasuraba. Estaba pelón, puro y duro. Ella había elegido ese nombre, Can Ciénago Da, y no le gustaba a él. No le importaba a Can Ciénago Da. Solo babeaba y amaba tanto ese hueso que invocó un fantasma con él. El dueño, muy muy bien pedo, salió a la veranda resquebrajada, y le gritó: Qué carajo. Que se joda. ¡Es fantasma!

El fantasma dijo: Buenas, buenas; esta va por ti. El fantasma era del sur-sur del Río Grande. El fantasma alquilaba el Cuarto Velvetón, el más pequeño de la cantina de la Señora, y abajo timaba a todos con ases. El fantasma perdió la fe al ver que el primer mocochico enmugró un iPad. Y la recuperó al ver que el chico se volvió un mejor padre.

Los fantasmas no huelen a nada, ya sabes, así que Can no se dio cuenta del fantasma vaquero. Solo siguió babeando ese hueso, amando ese hueso, lo que invocó un segundo fantasma: el fantasma de Alaín Reád. [De este nombre, y de los siguientes, mi marido deletreó los diacríticos.] Este fantasma fue el primer general de brigada. Este fantasma no podía evitar hurgar en cada biografía napoleónica con la esperanza de encontrar su apellido. Buscó esos tildecitos, y solo encontró a Pía, Astría, Ramón.

El dueño arrancó las cabezas blancas de las gardenias y las arrojó a esos fantasmas. Dijo: fuera, fuera, fuera. El arrepentimiento golpeó a esos fantasmas, y ellos titilaron hasta hacerte doler las sienes. Intentaron quitarse los sombreros, pero sus manos los atravesaron; intentaron inclinarse pero siguieron de largo, y se retorcieron sobre sí mismos. Atesoraban la vida, dijeron, y por eso nunca estaban listos para morir. Y por eso llegaron acá, dijeron. Porque la vida es amor y acá, esta noche, hay diez toneladas de eso en un saco de dos kilos. Y seguían hablando sobre los focos de amor y sandeces espectrales.

Todo el tiempo, Can nunca dejó su hueso, ni siquiera cuando los fantasmas seguían divagando. Ellos hablaban y hablaban. Hablaban de sus seres queridos: de cómo ella le daba un pisotón a los clavos flojos para meterlos de nuevo en las tablas del suelo, o lo mal que él bailaba la tarantela. Pero vieron que la mente del dueño se había ido a otra parte, así que crecieron cuatro veces su tamaño. [Acá mi marido se enderezó en la cama del hospital.] ¡Si tuviéramos tu tiempo! Entonces podríamos decírselo bien. Por nosotros, todo en el camino: guerra y clase y machismo. Y escoge un prejuicio, sí. Pero este mundo nuevo, vivo, te lo permite. Tú puedes, dios, dios… Y con celos se alzaron hasta las ramas más altas.

Claro, el dueño no podría expresar su amor de mejor manera. Pero los fantasmas no parecían saberlo. No sabían que había demacrado a su esposa, siempre haciéndose el jefazo por pequeñeces, hasta que ella se quebró. Hace un mes, ya casi llegaba a casa de unas vacaciones sola, y él le mandó un mensaje con el recibo del agua: ¿Ves? Esas duchas suman. Y ella compró otro pasaje y siguió comprando pasajes y no había vuelto.

Los fantasmas no podían ver los borradores, unos cien, que había escrito. Su incapacidad para combinar su disculpa, más su amarla, más su desmoronarse sin ella, y todo eso mientras que lo decía de verdad. Sabían, sin duda, cuánto de verdad lo decía: más que nada. Te amo. ¡Te amo! ¿Pero cómo decirlo claro? Nunca parece decirse de verdad; siempre parece retórica: una cifra, un timo, un acento fugaz.

Comenzó a llover, y por fin el perro quierehuesos levantó la vista y empezó a gemir. De vez en cuando se le salía un gallo. Los fantasmas vieron que el dueño, ahí abajo, se había puesto más pálido y más frío; entendieron que habían metido la pata. El dueño llamó: Can Ciénago Da, Can Ciénago Da. Después de que entraron los dos, fue cerrando una por una cada ventana de la casa. Se sentó en su escritorio. Ya pronto, pensó, así que le daría otro intento. Como sea, muy pronto…

Pero el hueso se quedó afuera, y eso importa—ese hueso ridículo bajo una especie de luna. ¿Te acuerdas de la que se reflejaba en nuestro baño de pájaros? Cuando pusiste tu mano bajo mi trasero, como nunca habías hecho hasta entonces, y esa chachalaca sonó. ¿Nomás seguía chachalaqueando y cagando y chapoteando en la luna? [Se rió.] Esa es la luna. [Señaló al frente y luego tomó mi mano.] ¿Oyes esa noche, a través de la tormenta, mientras la lluvia se acerca? Está muy buena; así la teníamos. Y esos dos o casi tres fantasmas, también se les deja cerrar los ojos; también se les deja imaginar mejores formas de decirlo, porque la noche en sí ya era tan buena.

But nothing was still in hindsight.
The cigarette rolled along your fingers
and waggled red ash circles spilling
mites of gray under splinters of the railing.
Your eyes moved jerky-drunk
and we had arrhythmic hearts since morning 
when I’d sung my first I love you, 
long pause, shower still warming,
and your me too swung back low.

That night, fingernails tip-tipping the balustrade, 
but always growing anyways,
and mine came out cracked in notch bands. 
You couldn’t help scratching that or smoking when our host offered,
taking in the fine fair cold night air and letting it out as you were—
complete motion, each blue thread of your iris pulling,
thread of your jeans shifting, hair coiling, ring tightening,
skin shedding, lungs dragging, holding, and releasing.

When I was itty-bitty, Dad crashed
fumbling for his cigarette under the mat—
smoking is an ugly habit to get.

Stop, I tell you, a cold so cold nothing moved:
so split the atom to fuzzy quarks 
and quarks to split seconds and split those again until
all was motionless down to the indivisible, I thought.
Stop; you did. Ugly. Don’t start. Tell him no.
And you passed the cigarette off saying:
People-pleasing pleases you. I cannot accept that,
and my displeasure kept on until at last, 
in apology, you said: I love you too
while falling sideways in the bed, hoping 
I’d grab your legs and spin them right, but still 
I refused and we slept turned wrong and away.

It is years later, on a different balcony better made
that frames the countryside—
distant cows looking bearish on the hill,
tree canopies steaming as pipes of industry,
hot industry mixing sulfur with the riverbed—
and I’m handed a cigarette. Unlike yours,
the smoke does not rise in hard clots
but is herded aside by the wind; 
my flopping fop haircut is blown teeny-bopper too,
and you would have licked your palms laughing 
and pushed it past my ears while I remussed myself 
but at some point it changed. 
Sure, I say, raising the cigarette, 
dragging coughing exhalation out.

Then a nerve rings on my thigh and looking down 
it is a black moth resting.
Soon it will go up again, 
blending with the smoke,
for ceaseless fluttering toward the porch light. 
And doing all I can these days,
I leave it alone.

Bikes! Gnashing gears on the front of his calf, and the weight of a real human above. Goedemorgen, he says, what a golden sticky sweet canal! Loud American, she thinks. But, sorry for the crash, she offers a tour of the Keizersgracht. Life! The black pores of her nose surprise him, and he didn’t know sheets can hardly cover two. She batters him awake, interrupting his: morning with: stay? And the bowls ain’t right, and no tap tap because there are moments where it lets up and we see, yes, and we feel, yes, that this week was a week, and good enough for another, yes. Can he? No, he says, laughing finally. Next week is the Black Friday of telecom sales. Ernie’s in town. But one day, he imagines, he’ll tell his boys it gets better, and no, that won’t be a lie.

Bog-o Dog Din had a ridiculous bone which he loved and slobbered. His owner was a scruffy kielbasa kind of man. His hair was moving south, down to the chest and testes. His wife was away, so now he never shaved. He was bald flat out. He hadn’t picked that name, Bog-o Dog Din, and he didn’t like it. But Bog-o Dog didn’t mind. He just slobbered and loved that bone so much he summoned a ghost with it. The owner went outside, tee totally snockered, to the cracked veranda and yelled: Oh what the hell. Fuck that. That's ghost!

The ghost said: howdy, howdy, here’s lookin’ at you. The ghost was from way south the Rio Grande. The ghost used to rent the Velour Room of Señora's Saloon and he hustled aces downstairs. The ghost lost all faith when the first booger-boy gunked an iPad.

Ghosts don’t smell, you know, so Bog didn’t notice cowboy ghost. He just kept slobber-loving that bone, which summoned a second ghost: the ghost of Alaín Reád. [Here my husband spelled out the diacritics.] This ghost was first brigadier. This ghost couldn't help but scour each and all Napoleonic biographies, trying to find his name. He searched for those little ticks but only found Pía, Astría, Ramón.

The owner tossed gardenia heads at the ghosts. He said: shoo, shoo, shoo. The ghosts were contrite; they gave you a headache to look at them. They said they came here because it was a hotspot for love. That’s how it worked with them. They said they’d been afraid of death since they treasured life so much, especially the people in their life, and especially the strange little things those people did. That was love, maybe. They said by nature of their time and their occupations and their confines of race, sex, class, etc., they couldn’t properly express this love to those people. They said they were envious of him; he could, in this modern climate, right now!

Of course, the owner couldn’t express his love any better. But the ghosts didn't know that. They didn't know he'd haggard his wife, always playing big boss over trifles until she snapped. She was almost home from her one-woman vacation, but he texted her the water bill: those showers add up, so she bought a new ticket and kept buying tickets and still hadn't come back.

The ghosts didn't know about the hundred or so drafts he’d written. His inability to combine sorry, plus that he loved her, plus that he crumbled when she wasn't there, and all that plus mean it. They certainly knew how much he meant it: more than anything. I love you. I love you! [Here my husband straightened in the hospital bed.] But how to write a note like that? You never seem like you mean it; it always seems like rhetoric, as much a number, a hustle, a way of pronouncing.

Instead what they saw was a bone-loving dog who caterwauled low as the rain came in. They saw the owner now paler plus colder. He called the dog inside: Bog-o Dog Din, Bog-o Dog Din. Then, one by one, he closed every window of the house and sat at his desk to try again.

But the bone was left outside, that’s important. The ridiculous bone under a kind of moon, you remember the one in our bird bath? When you put your hand under my rump, how you’d never done till then, and the beeping whip-poor-will call? That’s the moon. [Here he smiled finally. He pointed forward then took my hand.] Hear that night before the storm? It’s very fine; it’s how we had it. And the three-odd ghosts, they get to close their eyes too, they get to think of all the better ways to say it too because the night itself was so, so, so fine.