María Emilia Baca, Rain in May

Rain in May

María Emilia Baca

It was May when she realized death was money. Flower money funeral money church money. Dirty money dirty enough to stain that church any church but clean enough to shine not like a shrine but like cheap glass. In church that day the whiteness is blinding. Every wall and every floor every vase and every flower. All white and holy. All white and holy. All white and too holy for the sin. The sin that brought down the tears and told the tears to fight. I can hear your heart breaking he said. Tears don’t fall that fast (it is not supposed to be this way). I tried to clean the altar when I came (it is not supposed to be this way). And then it started raining so it was no use it just kept falling and falling and couldn’t fix the cracks or the swallowing of the Earth. Not even when it was God’s rain and not even in that church. Not even when it was too white and holy and not even when it should have been empty and not even when there was no money for ugly flowers. But with no mercy God’s rain kept falling upon your garden not to grow but to drown. Falling upon the whisper that spelled from ashes to ashes. Only stopped when she asked God about the wind.