She walks among the living for miles,

days, breaks down,

carries on,

makes her way to a clinic in Christianville,

her pain, swelling,too much to bear.

Along dirt roads, past mass graves

and piles of debris,past heads bowed

in prayer, bodies bent over

lifting the dead,

heaving bodies,

past goats rummaging through plastic bags

and emptied bottles,

rotted foodand waste,

she dreams her son in her arms,

the warmth of him,

the weight,

speaks as though he can take in, latch on

to every word.

2

In this country, the ocean is a mirror,

its surface

divides the worldof the living

from the world of the dead.

Spirits linger, take part in the communion

everlastingon earth

but nothing is left here for them now,

nowhere to go.

She once believed it had been a blessing

that no one really dies in Haiti,

since it had always been such a violent,

bloody place,

but perhaps now to depart, to fall

through the sacred pooland keep falling

might be the only way to find peace.

3

The doctor is American, on a mission trip

with Forward Edge,

there in hope of helpingand healing himself.

That he is at the clinic when she arrives

is fate:sò, destine

that will twistand swerve,

bend and break, turn

and translateinto their story.