Pedro's Boy

Pedro’s Boy

Rosario’s father was very small.
He stood respectfully at the boy’s bedside,
wearing a freshly laundered shirt,
dismayed by the gauges and displays,
the tubes and wires that connected his boy to life.
Futilely. In vain.
They spoke a language beyond his small but proud vocabulary.
He was confused.
How could his boy be dead, with his chest still rising and falling
as the breath was piped in, keeping his vital organs alive?
He heard the words and recognized them, but they made no sense.
“He can’t be dead! He is my second son, the one who looks like me!”