For this session we read a poem“Redeem” by Rosalie Moffett, posted below.

Our prompt was: “Write about a redemption center.”

Participants are warmly encouraged to share what you wrote below (“Leave a Reply”), to keep the conversation going here, bearing in mind that the blog of course is a public space where confidentiality is not assured.

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Please join us for our next session Monday July 30th at 6pm EDT, with more times listed on our Live Virtual Group Sessions.

Redeem by Rosalie Moffett
The sun was losing
a long gold tooth

on the linoleum
of the labor and delivery ward.

I lifted my plastic bracelet to the green eye
of the barcode gun and it sang

the first note
of money’s national anthem.

Redeem, a word with its feet
in the cement block

of bribe, of buy. Each Tylenol,
a tiny egg in the nest

of the nurse’s cupped hand,
rematerialized weeks later

on the itemized bill. Nearby, a sign
on the fine diamond storefront:

GOING OUT OF     SIN     !

Redemption, a mercy

of wind, of one idea
asleep in another.

I had been the nation
you lived in. Like a shore

in lapping water,
you made your borders

expand a little
with each breath.

Source: Poetry (April 2024)