Touch: The Journal of Healing

 

Editor’s Choice























































 

You will find it in the stillness

by Katherine DiBella Seluja


You will christen him with saline

wash the noise and tape away


acetone ghosting from the room


you will wrap his tiny form

in the sheet they call morgue pack


only pale white morning moons remain


when ventilator's incessant

waves of breathing come to rest


when persistent pulsing

monitor is done


when the shining beads of moisture

inside his breathing tube are gone


pale white morning moons remain


It is then that you will feel

the ancient mantle


on your chest

drop like sodden wool


yet light as infant's breath


it is then that you will bow

you head and mumble ragged prayer


silent    awkward    praise





© 2013  Katherine DiBella Seluja





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.

Copyright © 2012

Touch: The Journal of Healing

All rights reserved.