Greater Love

I slept through the whole thing.

Two floors above me "the brother from Senegal" on the roof's edge ready to trade one kingdom for another, his long, swarthy legs dangling in the dusk of Anacostia morning.

My neighbors said "his whole body shook" with weeping—the kind of grief we have forgotten, or have become too dignified to show.

His wife left him the night before; his kingdom had come and gone.

Later that morning I wanted to ask him if there is a Wolof word for the blues or if there is any music with notes large enough.