​Sacrifice Poem by julia kolchinsky dasbach

After we make love and you are asleep,

I try to hear your breath without touch, spilling



out of a closed mouth, or maybe see it

in the stomach's slow lift or the throat's



steady pulse or in your pupils,

their shifting under lowered lids.



But when the room is too dark, your exhales

too quiet, I fear your body



has grown hollow, life has fled,

and the sheets shroud both of us.



I press the dip between your collarbone

and neck, that suprasternal notch



where skin is thinnest, where I can almost

feel your heart and lungs, follow



their measured rising. I wonder if I am

like Madri to her Pandu: a wife



tempting a cursed husband with her naked shape

and feeding Ishvara, Yahweh, or the sky



his breath? I hear the call of wives and mothers

of all mothers who had faith: A wife who dies



with her husband shall remain in heaven

as many years as there are hairs on his back.



These offerors of anumarana, jauhar, sati sing:

Dress in your wedding gown and turn your body



to his body. Throw it on a blazing pyre

so you can rise with him. I imagine holding



your statued hand in mine, reciting vows

we made once, and we ascend together, ghosts



on our unlived journey. Again, I hear them

calling: Join us there. Silence your soft whistling breath.