Dear Sadako, you left us, leaving behind only your feet,
cut off at the ankles. Perhaps you left Seattle to go
to Hiroshima and be there in that other Peace Park
with that other Sadako. There is so much we must
tell you. There is so little to say. It must be painful
to wobble about the streets on your ankles. It must
be wonderful to run away with someone who covets
your brass body. To lie in a blast furnace and feel
your body burn, your body turn into liquid. Feel
the heat melt away all human history. Dear Sadako,
do not trust anyone who tells you: I love you more
without your feet. Now we must stand in the park
and stare at these two brass stumps. Now we must
imagine your arms, head, hands, torso, tilt, face.
There is so little to tell you. So much to say.
You left us and then you found we left you. It hurts,
in the fibula, and the tibia, to say this, yet I must.
So much that’s gone wrong goes wrong. Dear Sadako.
(On the theft of the statue of Sadako Sasaki from Seattle’s Peace Park, missing since July 12, 2024. Sadako died on October 25, 1955, from leukemia caused by the atomic bombing of Hiroshima. She was twelve years old.)
