Patricia Jabbeh Wesley: Cleaning Lady
The war had already overrun the entire country of Liberia even as we awaited our evacuation in March of 1991. Charles Taylor was making his on and off comeback to kidnap residents in the city suburbs, And missiles were still landing in our backyard soon after the ceasefire agreement.
Patricia Jabbeh Wesley: When Monrovia Rises
All day, boys younger
than history can remember, shout at one another
on a street corner near me about a country they
have never seen.
Patricia Jabbeh Wesley: Erecting Stones
Here, in Congo Town, I’m picking up debris
from twenty years ago. Some remnants of bombs
and missile splinters, old pieces of shells from
the unknown past.
Patricia Jabbeh Wesley: This Worn-Out Hospital Gown
like all the other women survivors,
me, walking free from the monster.
Patricia Jabbeh Wesley: News
our people who do the hard work
of America,
dying as caregivers
Patricia Jabbeh Wesley: A Dirge for Our Murdered Sons
Oh, America, how many tears do you want
before you stop killing our sons?
Patricia Jabbeh Wesley: There Will Be Times
How your arrival is now nothing to her?
And your leaving is nothing to her?
Patricia Jabbeh Wesley: Flying
When I grow up, I want to be a fish,
a big blue fish if I ever grow up.
Patricia Jabbeh Wesley: In the Other World
Our beloved lay down and then eloped
to that other world.
Patricia Jabbeh Wesley: When I Shut the Door
The news arrived by e-mail — a scribble of a long, single sentence, broken up, like little chunks of wood, the way a year is broken up into months and weeks, days, hours.
Patricia Jabbeh Wesley: I’m Waiting
Waiting,
so, we can finally mend the pain of our broken
homelands, all the ruined places
of our being, oh Africa,
to mend our broken roads and broken minds.
Patricia Jabbeh Wesley: Our Casualties
We were living at the Mount Clinton Internally Displaced Refugee camp outside of Roseville the day his death news came in. It struck something throughout the camp of thousands, like an axe cutting through hard wood…
Patricia Jabbeh Wesley: Pittsburgh
When I was a child,
I used to hear of this faraway place
where my people came to drown
themselves in search of America.
