for Ryan
An American friend I have never met in person
lives in Mexico now. He is justly afraid
of men in this country who wish to kill
everyone not like them, and mostly for money,
but enough about them. My friend is learning Spanish,
has adopted a dog someone left on the street,
takes walks to cafés and the lavandería,
and when he meets people, he greets them and smiles,
asks them about their days. On this day
he saw a tree lush with fruit near his house.
It smelled of peaches, so he asked the owner,
¿Qué es? ¿Durazno? The owner said, No,
guayaba, a word my friend didn’t know.
Then she plucked a few, handed him a paper sack
full of what seem from the picture he posts
to be tiny suns, but no, they are guavas,
he tells us, too late for my mind, which repeats
sol, sol, until it goes without warning
to solstice, although today is September’s
equinox, but nothing feels equal or equitable
in this country I’m glad my friend chose to flee,
as each day I fear more for my freedom than ever,
and I know my great luck to have spent most of life
without feeling the fear that too many innocents
have breathed through each day of their own precious lives.
I’ve learned now what they long ago had to:
when fear plumps pillows and settles in for a stay,
step out to the green of some friendly yard
and look up to the sun. Catch a glimpse in the trees
of sweet fruit growing. Express deep gratitude
if a kind person’s hand plucks a few from the branches
and offers them to you, small lodestars of hope.
–
Jo Angela Edwins has published poems in over 100 journals and anthologies. She is author of A Dangerous Heaven (2023) and the chapbooks Play (2016) and Bitten (2025). She teaches at Francis Marion University in Florence, SC, where she served as the first poet laureate of the state’s Pee Dee region.