When his father lay dying
DJ Spinoza knelt before him in goatskins
and pretended he was someone else.

Cropdusters buzzed over the cornfields,
the knocking of washing machines was heard throughout the land
and the olive trees produced olives with newfound, masculine power.

Poor father! He was becoming smaller,
growing waxier and more inaccessible.
His face bore the stamp of chemotherapy.

He made efforts to speak, but the words shattered
into letters stamped on white plastic blocks in the game of Boggle.
The family bent forward to see what he was saying.

It was, “màmochka, màmochka.”
DJ Spinoza unwittingly looked at his own mother,
who sat as close to the bed as she could, grasping his father’s hand.