The Most Memorable Fact from Middle School Health Class

J.C. Rodriguez

Contractors from the towing company use Coca-Cola to clean
traffic collisions. The timing of the soak needs to be exact,

just enough to wash off blood but not enough to strip paint.
I wonder if the workers ever pour one out for the spills

no longer belonging to a body. I’d like to believe so,
perhaps not every time, but on the occasions the moon is full

& the street lights are flickering; while the wax is still unlit;
before the flowers get taped to bicycles & the street signs

become headstones; & in anticipation of the wind blowing
out candles & the vigil being delivered an ultimatum

of police sirens: evaporate or solidify. Regardless, Our Lady
of Guadalupe would still cry with molten tears. She holds

photographs in memoriam & the ink never dries—
framed in roses that never wither because our departed

don’t have names here. I ask the teacher, when she says a nail
can dissolve in Coke, does she mean a human being’s?

Makeshift Memorials

Erica Rawles

Insights

J.C. Rodriguez:

It’s hard to say what I was calling for. At first glance, it seems I was pleading for greater cultural humility from my hometown, or even the world at large. But it might not even be that deep. I think I’m just looking for life to be celebrated & wishing there were more avenues to do so.

Erica Rawles:

Recently, I saw loved ones carefully tend to two memorials near where I live—bringing Mylar balloons and fresh flowers on what I imagine might have been a birthday or anniversary. When I read J.C.’s piece, this memory and the image of other makeshift memorials that I often see on street corners and attached to sign poles around Los Angeles came to mind.