Blessed May You Be
for Sophia
Annunciation school shooting
victim. Minneapolis
The surgeon who fused
my neck refuses to give
up hope for the twelve
year old girl whose brain
hovers around one of the 120 bullets
sprayed through stained glass
windows. There is a church
of bodies gathered into pews;
there is a church of the hidden
mind that no hand or scalpel
can fathom, where wisdom
weeps and winnows into love.
Who can divine what is stored
deep in the brain, and whither
shall it flee when fire and steel
mark it for destruction? She
will live. She will not. The girl,
named for the one by whom
the world was founded, founders
in the ICU of the county hospital.
Now and then she opens
her eyes. She inhales the same air
that has circled the world
for millennia, exhales the grief
and longing that somehow bind
us together. Her parents hold her
hand, perhaps they brush the hair
from her forehead. I imagine
the fire in every single cell
of their being pleads heaven,
pounds on heaven’s twelve
doors, hoping that one will
open, that maybe a saint
who has been bleeding silently
for centuries will hear and heed.
After three days in the hospital,
where I could order anything
on the menu, I walked out
with a brace around my neck
to wear for a month. Not
punishment exactly, but not
exactly a blessing I would
choose if it were not needed.
What plague will suffice?
Will understating penetrate
the skulls of those
who make the laws?
Will death yield
to the promising hands?
Such knowledge
is too hard to bear.
Our heads hang heavy.
Without a neck to hold
them up, we would not
have a throat to scream.
• • •
Patrick Cabello Hansel’s poetry collections are The Devouring Land, Quitting Time, and Breathing in Minneapolis . He has published in over 90 journals, been nominated three times for a Pushcart Award and won awards from the Loft Literary Center and MN State Arts Board. www.artecabellohansel.com.