Father,

You lived in a tiny house with a tin roof,
chickens in the back and machetes by the doors.
The red earth encroached always up through the nonexistent
back wall.

Your father once told you a story:
He caught his reflection in standing water
and realized he should have been
born a fish.

He worked in the coffee fields with the smell
of decaying berries and the mosquitoes like steam,
you couldn't stand the sight of him.

He spoke slowly and never in anger, but you thought
him weak as a sow and you sometimes spit on his boots in the
hallway.

You once told me a story:
Your father caught a fishbone in the throat,
the bone spread into his chest and eventually his lungs.
He died turning into a fish, you told me,
just like he always wanted to be.