GETHSEMANE

Late night in the guest room, between our hosts’ 
Bedroom & the nursery where their toddler 
Calls & calls, we lie awake, struggling to trust
This new parenting, never taking the child 
Into bed, not soothing her when she wails,
Allowing her to exhaust herself toward sleep.

That same cry rose across fields at Antietam, 
Those wounded boys so far from home, 
One voice triggering another, mama! 
Like a series of muffled explosions
Echoing into the future where I hear
Tyre Nichols & all our dying citizens
Keening from the crib, their weak bleating
Unanswered though never-ending, our country
Awake or maybe sleeping, as we are not. 

This article appears in April 2026.