Whitney Rio-Ross

Whitney Rio-Ross is author of the chapbook Birthmarks (Wipf & Stock) and poetry editor for Fare Forward.  Her poetry has appeared in Presence Journal, Psaltery & Lyre, Relief Journal, America Magazine, and elsewhere. She was the winner of the 2021 Sacred Poetry Contest and lives in Nashville, TN, with her husband and pups.

Saint Agnes, Fallen Near Baptismal

Urakami Cathedral, Nagasaki

There was so much she couldn’t have

imagined. That the knuckles kneading her

to life would one day gnarl to stone.

How the pool would soon thirst

to baptize even talons splashing through

the sacred. Why howls would lace

the silence she must learn to love.

That her dreams of breath would choke

to nightmare as vapor dissolved

each echo she believed. Whether her god

was named false or true.

But surely she learned what I haven’t kept

still enough to prove—that even the holiest waters

won’t reflect all they drink in.

It’s still a matter of lighting.

Read more of Whitney’s work in Solum Journal Winter 2022 and Solum Journal Volume III.