In Mexico, they bake bread
for those who died—flat
little cakes they leave around the house
for a mother or father or a child
to find. The dead are living
like us, growing fat, paying their debts,
brushing their teeth on schedule.
Sometimes it’s hard to make your way
across a room to shake someone’s 
hand or give them a drink. The dead
are always there, in their evening gowns
and tuxedoes, expecting to be served—
asking for more crackers or champagne.
Just making love is a sacrilege! 
The grandmother is there and the school
teacher and the delicate sister,
even those who are not yet born,
more innocent than babies. You get
up in the morning to comb your
hair and you are combing the brittle hair
of the dead, which goes on growing
like the eyelashes and the finger 
nails, as if the body were the last
to know or simply stubborn.
And maybe that’s what the cakes are for—
to nourish the vanity of the corpse,
who after all would like to look
as good as possible on such a great
occasion. Listen! You hear the leaves
cracking faintly at dusk, a tire humming
on dry pavement, the sound of water
rushing through a pipe? The dead
are hungry! You must take
your knives and bowls and do down
into the cellar; you must begin to chant
those old recipes you’ve been saving—
mixing your own blood with the dry
sand the dead grow fat on,
that the children of the dead roll
into loaves for you to eat—
for the dust that will eventually pass
entirely through you.