Song For Terisa

When I think of your fifteen year-old body
as the surgeon opened you to see the damage
six hollow points did; when I think of the one
bullet that ricocheted off your scapula, passed through
a lung, a kidney, then bit a hole in your torso
just to be free of you, I wonder how
can I make you love this world

enough to change how you talk, how you wear
your make-up, clothes? From the seventh floor
of Cedars-Sinai, I stare into the dark

at the end of the light. Streetlamps brighten quickly.
ThatÕs also how memory works.
It was like being forgiven
when my sister brought you home. She held you
to her breast and each word spoken
over your bald head recanted
every glass pipe she warmed her reflection in,
every rival she cut her knuckles on
and left sprawled on a dance floor, every morning
she woke wrapped in unfamiliar blankets,
every night collaged into the woman she was
on her wedding bed Ð clutching her husband,

being afraid to let go. Terisa, here among banks
of telephones, who is there to call?
When you were four, youÕd speak into the phone
all the nonsense that made sense
to you, and to me sounded like hope.
After all this nonsense

all I want is to hear you
say you were doing nothing
when the four boys approached
the fence. When the one, bandanna-capped
like a pirate, asked ÒWhere you from?Ó
you said nothing. I want you to tell me that
when you looked into the barrelÕs black eye
you saw the future rushing at you
in one quick second and it looked
empty as your motherÕs arms
when you laid in your crib and she whispered
all the things you were going to do.

-- Robert Arroyo, Jr.