Prayer circle in the ICU

Touch: The Journal of Healing

Editor’s Choice

Prayer circle in the ICU

by Katherine DiBella Seluja

Serious as hours

in a wooden pew

kneel and rise in your legs

frankincense in the air

rise and fall

in chest of the baby born too soon

tachypnea pulls at rib spaces

until it can pull no more

and later the prayer circle

united us one time

nurses hands amidst plastic tubing

parents' hands amidst

tears and pain

palm to palm

we faced each other

mumbled prayer born out of stillness

words born out of grief

offered up to cushion a baby's soul

released from radiant warmer

unwrapped from swaddling clothes

floating farolito of Christmas Eve.

Katherine DiBella Seluja received degrees from Yale and Columbia University. Her poems have appeared in New Mexico Poetry Review, Santa Fe Literature Review, and Sin Fronteras. Her chapbook, After the Thread Unravels, was a finalist in the 2012 Bordighera Poetry Competition. She lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico and dreams in Siena.