Patricia Jabbeh Wesley
Poem Written from a Single Snapshot
On the beach in Monrovia,
my children and I are building sand castles.
You can see the Atlantic’s waves in the distance,
fighting for a place to roll their way onto shore.
Waves are flapping in the wind
as the tide rises up and down.
Before we know it, we are in the middle of water.
Besie is two years old. MT who is only
six months, clings a short arm around my knee.
He’s staring at Besie and the sand castle
she’s erecting with her right foot.
This is how my mother taught me
to build a sand castle.
You put your foot down and build mounds
around it until the castle becomes stable.
This is how we search for home.
You put your foot down in a place long enough
that new place becomes home.
