For My Friends, In Reply to Your Question by R. A. Villanueva

"No one has slept here in months."

For My Friends, In Reply to Your Question
by R. A. Villanueva

We are making it through, yes,
but barely. What we have now
is at the least an everyday—
some bewildering dance where we
keep time with each other. My son
has chosen a corner of our street
where we’re meant to track
the neighborhood’s drifting
into spring: he watches a vine
creep along the brick face,
notes with pastels and gel pens,
its roots clawing the mortar,
a lone bumblebee in its fat orbit
around nearby blossoms. He tends
to his own carnations in a jar
of dye and water, sketches
an experiment to test if color
will disappear into the air. Nothing
is ever all-gone, he says, gently
drowning a small cactus
he carried from the bodega
before it shuttered for good. Later,
he will list the names of everyone
we miss. Later, he will sing
“Happy Birthday” to a cousin
across the Palisades, to an uncle
three stops away on the F,
to a family friend out west
as we gather by the light
of screens, around the dinner table
at a house my parents hope
to give away. We leave
Brooklyn for here—this lawn
I had to mow in the summer,
this backyard where Grandpa
nursed tomatoes and green beans,
where my brother and I
pressed rocks into the earth,
flicked pill bugs onto their backs.
I tried to tell my son those stories,
but he was chalking the driveway,
throwing tennis balls at windows,
pouring bubble solution
into flower beds. No one
has slept here in months
and I’ve spent these first hours
home paging through albums
while my daughter rolls
among the quilts and pillows
of the living room. She laughs
when I take her hands to cup
them to my ears, when I tickle
the ridges of her ribcage, when
we call her name with soft,
percussive notes, whisper boom
boom boom in triplet. You
could never imagine my hair
this long. Every photograph
and keepsake sits covered in dust.

First published in A Holy Dread by R. A. Villanueva, Alice James Books, 2026.