for Patricia Jabbeh Wesley
Walking the dogs in Children’s Memorial Park, Peruvian mesquites
drape generous lacey shade where we stroll over
the crisp carpet of dead leaves. At the base of an elder,
a pool of sap thick as copal and wide as my torso, bark
stained black along the trail of tears
from the wound where an arborist has cut
off a large limb. Who knows how long
this tree has cried her timeless grief?
I spread my hand where the emptiness begins
across my chest for the 20-year-old son
shot and killed “by mistake” while talking
on the phone to his mom. My Liberian friend
calls crying she’s scared when her son
drives or walks the streets after dark. Together
we cry and cry until her heart song rises
to the canopy of these magnificent mesquite trees
park staff trim, trees that lose limb after limb
for our thoughtless walking path past
the Children’s Memorial Wall
written with the names of thousands of lost sons
and daughters, some taken by disease, others drowned, killed
in car accidents, at home or by police, by guns or fists, all
dead too soon, names etched into granite
polished deaf as burnished steel.
