On the white wet branches of the wawa tree, still clutching the last brittle leaves of harmattan, two doves land. They say, “Go,” and still, I want to make them into something they are not. Ananse’s messengers, whispers of ancestors, a sign from the other side of the veil. What news do they bring from the world beyond? It cannot be good. More hunger, more hands reaching for a future stolen before birth, more blades dulling against old scars, more salt in the wounds of those who kneel beneath the great trees, waiting for snow. And snow does come—a hesitant dusting, falling from whatever we believe lies beyond the sky. The doves seem enormous, as big as condors, but only because I watch them too closely, ask them to mean too much. They do not care for omens or prayers. A shake of a wing, and both are gone. No message given, no message asked of me, only their absence and my own silence, settling like the dry-season wind on the white wet branches of the wawa tree.

What do we do with the boy, do we burn him, do we nest him in dirt or stone, do we wrap him in cedar and myrrh, in muslin, in all our questions, then lower him into a country of worms? What becomes of a son’s body, if none of us names it now, if we leave it for time to dissolve— will it soften like wax or shrivel like salted meat in the sun? We have the denim torn at the knee, his cracked phone, the shoelace knotted like an unfinished prayer— are these relics or trash? Is grief what gives them weight? If the sheet stained with his sleep still holds the shape of him, would it be a kind of betrayal to wash it clean? Or worse, to wear it in secret, like armor? On the floor, beneath his dresser: a drawing he made, him as a hawk. Was this a wish, or a warning? Did he know how close the wind had come to taking him? Do we call the priest, or the flame? My brother says bury. My mother weeps for fire—“ashes can be held,” she says. My father hasn’t spoken since the accident, just holds the box of his childhood teeth like a god measuring what Job once lost. And I—I look at my own hands, half-expecting chains, Prometheus-style, welded by silence, left to the vultures. No one grieves the god who brought us the spark; we only light it. My brother says, “He was a boy, not a myth.” But I saw it— he tried to bring light to us. And what now? Shall we build a pyre in the backyard and call it a cathedral? Shall we drag him to earth and let it take its toll? Shall we exile him to memory? Was he a country we lost without maps? Is grief its own topography—floodplain, drought, scorched field? Was this what Hercules felt, if he ever lost a son? (But did Hercules ever have a son who died?) Does that mean he was spared this? Does it mean he was no man at all? And what then am I, still living? Where is the hole they talk about, the one you can crawl into and forget? Is forgetting, too, a kind of godsend? How long does it take— how many mornings, how many crows? I look at my hands, again. Once they held him. Now they only ask questions. What do we do with the body? What do I do with these fists?

They found him face-up, a hush in the reeds / Birds combing the spindle trees, eyes like pond-glass, buzzing out glitch-songs above the body / not again, not again / moss swaddled his jaw like a jaw still thinking / his eyes full of dusted glass / not shut, not open / He was once fire / once feet / once cornmeal and deer sinew / now just wet cloth and the smell of rusted pennies / Swamp moss draped over the arcades / the frogs croak / tabulate / bear witness without comment / we watched them—two of them― half-boys, half-breath / The first son did not speak / The second son dropped to his knees in the bog-water / cupped air before he dared touch / He reached for the man’s cheek the way one might reach for fire they used to know / a cheek like dried leather / a ghost’s shoulder / he wanted to know him / to call him back / to say: you were not alone / we saw you / we came / But the first son gripped his wrist—tight― No / said with a glance / No / said with the bones he came from / the rule was unspoken / The frogs croaked louder / like rattles / or teeth in an old mouth / The boy fought for the right to know / to press palm to cheek / to feel the weight of the silence passed down / to name what had no name but memory / or warning / or mirror / The swamp took in his struggle / did not speak / only shivered its mosquitoes / flexed its breath / A drop of body oil the size of a water balloon slid from the man’s collar / split on a fern / atomized into salt and silence / Roiling in the stillness was something holy / or wrong / or both / A footstep is a swamp in which gators rise / a carnival of teeth beneath us / He was once breath / once drum / now just a story the earth almost forgot / And still—the boy wanted to touch him / as the frogs croaked / as the sky held its breath as moss curled around the names we never say aloud.

If I’m honest, the story reached me like heat rolling in off desert stone this man, not yet thirty, pulling water from the bones of jars and making it wine. They say he opened a blind man’s eyes with spit and dust, called a dead man out of his tomb like it was nothing more than sleep. But what if, by some ruin in the stars, some curse woven through our lineage like cracked olive branches, the grief still comes no matter how we bow, or lift our hands toward something greater? The way they found Ezra’s boy folded in the straw behind the stable, face calm as if dreaming, the mother shaking him softly, then not at all what god would allow that? Am I wrong to say I stopped praying after that? I even said as much on the walk back through the alleys of the old quarter, where bread cost more than a man’s word, and word of miracles passed quicker than famine. Even now, when someone says they’ve seen him—the Nazarene standing in the market with eyes like fire held at bay, I feel my chest lock up. At any moment, something terrible could crack open again. A child gone, a wife taken by fever. The ache hasn’t left me. It sits behind the ribs, quiet as a lion waiting. They say he walks among us now. That he weeps. That he laughs. That his touch is like morning. But I have been wrong before. I have waited, and nothing came. Still….still.. I want it to be true. I want the blind to see. The dead to rise. The stone rolled back. One day, I will believe again, I feel it coming― like thunder under sand. I will walk the path barefoot, head bowed, asking only for a sign that the world might heal. That someone still walks among us who remembers how.