Breathless
Lois Roma-Deeley
Run all the way to your house.
Open the door.
You are not home.
With Holy Water in hand,
enter your bedroom,
bless the door jamb, window sill,
night stand, desk.
Step over shards of shattered glass.
Broken window, broken boy.
Make the sign of the cross
over your computer screen.
Count the holes in the wall
where, last night, you fought the voices,
seven devils clamoring in your head.
Now, underneath your mattress,
shove that little plastic statue,
The one my father carried during the war—
St. Jude, the patron saint of lost things,
reclaim him.
Lois Roma-Deeley’s most recent full-length poetry collection is Waiting for the Mercy Ship, forthcoming from Broadstone Books in 2025. Her previous books include The Short List of Certainties, winner of the Jacopone da Todi Book Prize; High Notes; northSight; Rules of Hunger. Her poems can be found in numerous journals and anthologies including Academy of American Poets’ Poem-a-Day Series,Thrush, Spillway and many more. She’s Associate Editor of the poetry journal Presence and is Poet Laureate of Scottsdale, Arizona. www.loisroma-deeley.com
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