The Skeleton and the Pyramid
A skeleton with a sombrero sat on top of an Aztec pyramid. The sun was setting. He played a song on his old guitar, it was called, “The Jaguar Moon.” At the end of the song, he took a bow for the small crowd that had gathered. The tourists clapped and tipped the skeleton plenty of pesos. The skeleton climbed down from the pyramid and bought a Paleta de Coco. It was his favorite flavor since childhood. The moon rose like a child’s rainbow kite. Eventually, the skeleton finished the paleta and disappeared into the crowd of restless tourists.
Jose Hernandez Diaz is a 2017 NEA Poetry Fellow. He is the author of The Fire Eater (Texas Review Press, 2020). He is an editor at Frontier and educator in Southeast Los Angeles.