Empty chairs beckoning to welcome those departed.
Who has left them empty? Were they always?

Sephardic wanderers taking rest on
bended knees  and viewing stars
shinning like pinholes in velvet.
Perfect in dimension to eyes of a curious child,
peaking from beneath a mother’s
velvet skirt.
Like marketplace wanderers,
selling respite and solace
to gilded pockets lined in dreams and gingersnap
optimism, they come to me.

“Hey!” they beg, tugging at my resolve.
“Hey, senor. Se gusta?”

I look, watching them point at spilt blood
washing upon dug-up bodies
stacked in tiny rows, leaving me horrified. They ask me again

“Senor, se gusta?”

The grime on their faces; not dirt, but smeared tears spilt over
holding frustration of desperate poverty
holding pain of a renewed middle-passage
as living souls are baked away in the hot desert sun
chasing after simple survival.

“Senor, se gusta?”

I stare at them, looking at the grotesque reflection in their eyes;
a reflection of me twisted in their gaze
like a funhouse mirror in full scream.
I shake my head and turn away, disgusted like the rest
and seeing our folly but only as
resolved in my tone, to them this tribute I toast.
For them, the chair is pulled out
with a hope to renew their humanity.