Rojo

Consider ancestors. Their keeping warm.
Their rasping accents thick with foreign time.
Their disapproval of your attitude.
Their dying ways of worship, and of trade.

Consider colours. How, though colours fade,
A bright serape stuns the mind’s arcade:
It’s there you keep your father’s father’s cloak.
A red shawl, as it happens, ribboned black.

Consider him. Your silent, side-eyed guest.
An implication blazing. Same-skinned ghost,
Who merely sneers. Or shields his sadness. Hands
That clench. He’s here, where many times he hunched,

Hunkering down, in a terse truce with time.
Beside a fire. Drink deep. Consider him.