"Face To Face" Archive

---

 

 

O God, do not stay far off:

my God, make haste to help me!

 

                              —Psalm 71:12

 

 

 

You?  Mine?

I don’t think so.

 

I’ll tell you what’s mine—

the shattered sunroom window,

my daughter with a flooding gash

across her foot and you

as far away as the hospital.

 

Concerned friends assure me

you hover nearby,

 palpable as steam.

 

My eight year-old son knows

when you come to his room

you’ll fly billowing

thick ribbons of black gauze.

 

I remind him, white.

But how do I know?

 

I’ll tell you what’s mine.

 

Whatever’s broken,

and my foot.

 

---

-- By:  Ms. Karen Jessee, OP - - a member of the Dominican Laity, St. Mary Magdelene Group in Raleigh, NC.  She writes and teaches, living with her husband and children near Chapel Hill, North Carolina.