My Father as a Guitar.

• Author: Espada, Martin
• Position: Poem

The cardiologist prescribed a new medication and lectured my father that he had to stop working. And my father said: I can't. The landlord won't let me. The heart pills are dice in my father's hand, gambler who needs cash by the first of the month. On the night his mother died in faraway Puerto Rico, my father lurched upright in bed, heart hammering like the fist of a man at the door with an eviction notice. Minutes later, the telephone sputtered with news of the dead. Sometimes I dream...