Bringing Closure // Patricia Jabbeh Wesley
Closure is such a final thing -- the needle in the arm,
one last word or no last word at all, a death chamber
where the supposed convict lies waiting so the poison
will descend or ascend to the heart, a final beat
and then sleep, that eternal thing none of us living
has ever seen. In California, today, a man is being
put to death, but outside, his supporters wait: candles,
flames, anger -- the cold chill of death and life,
and a country that waits for all the arguments to die
or live on. The victim's mother will see closure today,
they say, and move on after the murderer or supposed
murderer is laid to rest with her son, side by side.
Death is such an ironic thing to know. To know death
is to know rot, hush, the lack of pain. It is 3 a.m.
in Pennsylvania. Time, so deceptive and arbitrary
and imperfect. Around the world, we all wait, for
the executioner's poke into vein, blood meeting poison.
We are such civilized people, I'd say, dishing out death
in small poking needles. The newsmen tell us they
cannot find his vein. The awkwardness of asking the one
awaiting death to find his own vein so they can murder
him too -- the executioner's awkward fingers, the knowing
fingers -- afraid of both the man and the art of killing the man.
I hate death. I hate the dying, the ugly process of dying,
the ritual of murder. So I too keep vigil on my carpet.
Tomorrow, I'll tell my eleven-year-old daughter how
we have all murdered another human being. An eye
for an eye, so far away from my bedroom of dim lights,
a comforter or two, the surrounding hills in close view.
There is always a mountain here in Pennsylvania,
always that looming presence of life and death and the
far away feeling of the valley below, of being so far away
from home. There is no closure, I see, after the poison
has reached the heart, and the accused, stretched out, finally.
The victim's mother begins to weep all over again --
as if this were just the beginning of the dying.
one last word or no last word at all, a death chamber
where the supposed convict lies waiting so the poison
will descend or ascend to the heart, a final beat
and then sleep, that eternal thing none of us living
has ever seen. In California, today, a man is being
put to death, but outside, his supporters wait: candles,
flames, anger -- the cold chill of death and life,
and a country that waits for all the arguments to die
or live on. The victim's mother will see closure today,
they say, and move on after the murderer or supposed
murderer is laid to rest with her son, side by side.
Death is such an ironic thing to know. To know death
is to know rot, hush, the lack of pain. It is 3 a.m.
in Pennsylvania. Time, so deceptive and arbitrary
and imperfect. Around the world, we all wait, for
the executioner's poke into vein, blood meeting poison.
We are such civilized people, I'd say, dishing out death
in small poking needles. The newsmen tell us they
cannot find his vein. The awkwardness of asking the one
awaiting death to find his own vein so they can murder
him too -- the executioner's awkward fingers, the knowing
fingers -- afraid of both the man and the art of killing the man.
I hate death. I hate the dying, the ugly process of dying,
the ritual of murder. So I too keep vigil on my carpet.
Tomorrow, I'll tell my eleven-year-old daughter how
we have all murdered another human being. An eye
for an eye, so far away from my bedroom of dim lights,
a comforter or two, the surrounding hills in close view.
There is always a mountain here in Pennsylvania,
always that looming presence of life and death and the
far away feeling of the valley below, of being so far away
from home. There is no closure, I see, after the poison
has reached the heart, and the accused, stretched out, finally.
The victim's mother begins to weep all over again --
as if this were just the beginning of the dying.