JEANNINE SAVARD

Admissions

Lew Perez has up and shot himself
down in the boys’ spy headquarters

down in Diego Romero’s mother’s
laundry room

like he’s adding the final shirt to the pile
deserving to be found—limp and dirty

Under the row of window lights
the boys find a note he signed and
clipped to the line:

It was
a mistake
to love you
and worse
not to

Diego says he doesn’t know who
Lew loved
Diego’s mother says all she knows is
Lew loved

—planting her the red peppers, tomatoes, and
roses for her nicho with all the saints
She believed

God planted a mirror
inside Lew’s already rooted heart
God wanted everyone Lew met
to see love there

Diego’s father examined the bullet hole in twilight
Diego’s father said it was like looking down
into a dark basin
blood instead of water
flesh chugged around

air smelling like old Baja wine