My Own Beloved Child

Detail from "More Love Hours Than Can Ever be Repaid," 1987.

artist Mike Kelley.

 

On April 6, 2009, the body of 8-year-old Sandra Cantu was found inside a black suitcase floating in an irrigation pond in Tracy, California. Sandra had been missing since March 27, 2009. 

 

My Own Beloved Child 

I do not know you but I shall hold you like my own beloved child. 

I promise once I’ve cleaned you I will cover you like my own beloved child. 

From the black case, I lift you and lay your modest form upon a white sheet. 

Painstakingly, I comb through your tawny hair, like my own beloved child’s 

Gently I hold each hand and scrape foreign matter from under your pink nails 

Your tiny breathless nostrils and still breast makes me ache for my own beloved child. 

I photograph your cuts and bruises, set your twisted limbs aright, 

Map every inch of your lovely form as I might my own beloved child’s. 

I swab where I must, reassuring you that this will be the last assault upon you. 

I eliminate all infection from you as I would from my own beloved child. 

Every fiber and hair is combed from your hello-kitty top and black leggings 

as if I were grooming the lovely angel wings of my own beloved child. 

You are clean now, though no amount of wickedness could ever really stain you. 

Dearest, you are my angel, my angel; forever my own beloved child.