Innocent

Touch: The Journal of Healing

Innocent

by Christine Klocek-Lim

for just a moment

the snow felt innocent

light as a baby’s blanket

and you were born

crying until the silent doctor

and nurses, the quiet cold outside

hushed you, too

and they took you away

to the heat lamps

but you stayed blue

until the next day

when they opened your heart

switched its vessels

and then you slept for days

that January

while more snow came down

innocent and light

like I wasn’t

anymore

Christine Klocek-Lim received the 2009 Ellen La Forge Memorial Prize in poetry. Her poetry was featured as the Editor’s Choice in the September 2011 issue of Touch: The Journal of Healing. She has four chapbooks: How to photograph the heart (The Lives You Touch Publications), The book of small treasures (Seven Kitchens Press), Cloud Studies - a sonnet sequence (Whale Sound Audio Chapbooks), and Ballroom — a love story (Flutter Press). She is editor of Autumn Sky Poetry and her website is november sky.