The living blues

This is a poem that celebrates life honoring my ancestors. Día de los muertos, Day of the Dead, is a misnomer. This event has always celebrated bountiful harvests and our ancestors. Here's my tribute.

I don't celebrate my dead
My dead celebrate me
My dead have a hard time being dead
(Just like sometimes I have a hard time being alive)
My dead love being alive
My living abhor death
Life banishes death
Death accepts life
My dead and living love each other
A clacking embrace of skeletal desires
We each practice sleeping without breathing
We each practice breathing without sleeping
We each practice holding each other
We lie and live in a bed of blues
The skin of dreams is black
Our words are our memory of the first kiss
Our lips glazed with blue rouge offering an eternal kiss
I honor my dead by staying alive beyond my means
I carry my dead
in my love,
in my hair,
in my eyes,
in the palms of my blood
I am my dead
I am alive through them
My dead sway in the maize stalks
My dead roll around in the dust and the rain and the mud
My dead flirt, fool around, make fun of the living, they say:
You haven't lived until you've died!
...