_Zángano

_        There is no air anymore, vibrations maybe. My son died on Friday. Yesterday morning I had a call from his cell phone. I answered. There was a voice on the other end like a robot but also like my son. He was speaking maybe through an electric fan. Today, the cell rings again—his ring, El Coco—I don’t answer. Maybe they have the cell now, too.
       Today is Sunday. When the cell rings, first the radio sputters then the cell rings. My wife says they cut off the fingers to dial the numbers. My daughter says they cut off the lips to sip Coca Cola. My brother says they cut off the ears and listen. My mother says she is dead, and she never had a real name. My father says something I don’t understand. He is dead, too. The desert says coyote.
       -Coyote.
       My son has a heart covered in black dog hairs, and when it beats, the hairs grow a little longer, filling the ribs like burnt wires, bursting up into the airwaves. The drone hangs above the desert on a string. It swings back and forth tangled in the wires maybe. The head says the numbers, and it turns, the tiny plane, it turns over the vibrations like a worker bee. Maybe the drone is dancing, saying something sweet.
       -Here is something sticky and sweet. In the sand.
       It has no son. It has no brothers or sisters. No wife. It has no mother, no father.

--BEN ROBERTS