[Headline: “Expanding Mexico City Running Out of Cemeteries”]
“Take your father home,”
says the gravedigger, holding out
a sack of bones. In Mexico City
the graveyards are all full
and the dead wander the streets
looking for a place to lie down.
You can see them in doorways
(though they beg for nothing but rest)
or camped beneath trees
on the Avenue of Insurgents.
In Alameda Park the dead of the poor
play cards while those of the rich
play chess. It is the same everywhere.
An old tailor mends the ghosts
by candlelight. “This will hold you,”
he says, patting each on the cheek
as though they were his own grandchildren.