These rides, these blasts through the atmosphere, this guilt-thickened sea, this captain, this name, this balaclava’d god, this string of gray hair, this playing to the crown, these feather-capped fists and mountainous scams—like those who lay before us in these squared-off banks, it is now my name written on your tombstone tongue.
Except this is a birthday party, equipped with pointy hats and chocolate cake, surrounded by friends and family alike. Even though you’ve picked me out of the crowd, ostensibly because it’s my time, I need you to wait. At least until my daughter blows out her candles—because nobody knows what she’s going to wish for, and maybe that will buy us some time.
“A pony,” she says. “I wish for a pony!”
Ramces Ha is an MFA candidate at the University of Texas El Paso. He currently resides in Aledo, TX.