Sawfish Soup

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Edwidge Danticat

when papa was killed
in a corner in the
streets of Haiti
he was just getting
juice for me to have
with dinner.

someone saw
someone else
someone they always
sought to shoot.

so they came out
so they shoot
and no one picked
him up or said anything to us.

he stayed on the street
that whole Sunday
the soldiers spit
on him and forced
his face out of the sun
away from the sky.

someone saw
sought us out
said he was just
a passerby.

one soldier saw another
some soldier he was
seeking to shoot
papa was shot instead.

when mama heard that
papa was killed
in a corner of
a street in Haiti

she did not cry.
he was just getting
juice for me to drink
with dinner.

she said sorry no soldier
is going to see me sobbing.
They’ll see that someone
was hurt by their shots
and that will give them strength.

when papa was killed
in the corner of a
street in Haiti
It was hard to
throw out his dinner.

the sawfish soup and
ripe plantain mama had cooked.
she did not throw them out.

they’re on the table still.
she said when someone is
killed in the corner
of a street of Haiti
how can you discard his
sawfish soup when

you still don’t have
enough strength to go
and stand over his
corpse and steal him
out of the street.