In Loving Memory

        11/7/61     5/14/04

              of our aunt
              Lisa Pizarro


she’d be 43 -
is now filling the rear window
of a champagne Stratus,
with an outlined bullfrog
between the dates –
a goitered double-chin neck
representing her time here.

We love you as much as this Dodge!

darting rather recklessly
in and out of traffic-
cut me off-
is why I noticed at all.

six inches of snow to be scraped off,
then that 110 degrees in August.
a gas-guzzling monument –
I want mine on no less than a Lincoln
and with a Leprechaun.

We’re selling the car, does the decal come off?

another quick switch of lanes,
and I get this vision
of trunk and bumper
mangled and rusted,
rear-ended by someone else’s niece,
by another tribute with a flag perhaps.

We miss you when we adjust the mirror.

the metal now
crackled, twisted
and folded,
acres of wreckage
and black grease undercoat
surrounding Lisa Pizarro.

the words frosted
amid broken glass,
resting, still,
reflecting the crisp winter sun,
a bullfrog on an iceberg
waiting for a dirge.