Advertising campaigtn by Greg Wong for Restore NYC - Awareness for Sex-Trafficked Survivors |
In honor of Restore NYC and all places of haven.
will you learn to love your skin again
now scarred and scared
will the memory in your muscles
relearn how to let go in trust
will your eyes come to understand
that your tears
your weeping, your sobbing
are prayers releasing your heart from horror
will your feet discover again the way
the way a woman walks into life each day
and, finally, will your sacred breasts and womb
realize again how they temple your soul
these are the questions only you can answer
with a life that came back from the dead
Sister Lou Ella Hickman, I.W.B.S. published her first book of poetry, she: robed and wordless in 2015 (Press 53). She has published numerous poems in Spiritus, Commonweal, First Things, and Sojourners. One of her poems appeared in After Shocks: The Poetry of Recover for Life-Shattering Events edited by Tom Lombardo and one in Down to the Dark River: Contemporary Poems about the Mississippi, edited by Philip C. Kolin and Jack B. Bedell. She lives in Corpus Christi, Texas and she is also a spiritual advisor.