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