"Amor Eterno" • Rocío Dúrcal (by Shea Socrates)

The family had requested “Amor Eterno.” We played the mariachi mass like it was San Antonio, though it was a cold spring day in mid-Michigan.

I love Juan Gabriel’s recordings, but my favorite version is by Rocío Dúrcal. How she draws out the middle vowel in eterno.

Everything had been arranged by the deceased’s younger sister, fifteen, her English smooth.

Their dad had been deported the year before.

He was there on FaceTime. Projected from a phone. Passed from hand to hand when arms grew tired. I couldn’t make out his expression. A father at his daughter’s funeral, transmitted from phone to phone. There is no incense, no shared heaving, no embrace. Only pixels, songs through a small speaker, the distance.

The white priest, careful with his Spanish but unmistakably American, gave his sermon. We played at his cues.

I don’t remember if they, on their own, let the balloons go. The family had asked if we could loop the end of “Amor Eterno” as they processed out. We tried. There was too much to coordinate. The walking, the cues, the release. But in my head, the song keeps looping. The voices keep singing. Wind from the trumpets lifting the balloons higher, hearts beating with the guitarrón line, leaning on the infinite, anchored by the bolero rhythm from the guitar. Mikey leading everyone in singing amor eterno again and again until the balloons were gone. The middle vowel in eterno rising. The balloons don’t stop rising.

Shea Socrates (they/them) is a teacher and emerging writer. Their work has appeared in or is forthcoming in HAD, Passages North, Dishsoap Quarterly, The Bulb Region, Porcupine Literary, and JAKE. They live in Detroit with their partner Felicia and three pets, Vashti, Coney, and Vern. SOCIALS: BSKY: @vernorsofficial.bsky.social IG: @sheawrightsocrates