INTERNMENT

Poetry by Jen Karetnick

Before the fistfuls of soil refill the hole, the names like bells peal and repeal--
 
Before the blanketing of this bed, stones become a fitted sheet--
 
Before the gathering of the geological shroud, the shoulders a frame for the shaking, the ear an antennae as if to tune into the world’s secrets one final time--
 
Before the laying of lips and hands, a pillow of earth like a sling for the neck, an angle less than acute, the respectful roll and prop of the torso--
 
Before the facing of the features to qiblah, the unfastening of the kafan, as easily torn as modesty--
 
Before the removal of that false epidermis, roped in place, the posing of extremities in a perennial of prayer—They are hardy in most climate zones, those who are native and those deemed invasive, those who are sent back and those who can never be returned, sprouting for generations in the same ungenerous ground--
 
Before the lowering of the body, one more bucket into the dry well, the creep of the coffin, bobbing, a northern bald ibis searching on the banks of the Firat River for the scarce meat of beetles--
 
Before the cleansing of all that is corporeal, the rites for search and rescue--
 
Before the sopping, sand-crusted findings--
 
Before the boarding and the crossing over—the cap-sized measures for leave-taking—the braiding and braiding of faith is all that may continue to grow--

Jen Karetnick

Jen Karetnick is the author of seven poetry collections, including American Sentencing (Winter Goose Publishing), long-listed for both the 2017 Julie Suk Award and the 2017 Lascaux Prize, and The Treasures That Prevail (Whitepoint Press), finalist for the 2017 Poetry Society of Virginia Book Prize. The winner of the 2017 Hart Crane Memorial Poetry Contest, the 2016 Romeo Lemay Poetry Prize, and the 2015 Anna Davidson Rosenberg Prize, she has had work nominated for Pushcart and Best of the Net awards and published or forthcoming in Crab Orchard Review, Guernica, The Missouri Review, Negative Capability, One, Painted Bride Quarterly, Prairie Schooner, Prime Number Magazine, Spillway, Valparaiso Poetry Review, Verse Daily and Waxwing. She is co-founder/co-director of SWWIM (Supporting Women Writers in Miami) and co-editor-in-chief for SWWIM Every Day.