Tune in a Loop: a prose poem and a drawing by Jerrice J Baptiste

honeydew melon, image by Jill Wellington, on Pixabay

The Tune in a Loop

Tessa’s deep alto voice, a low hum in my left ear. The gentle breeze carries the tune, It Is Well with My Soul. Lifting the violet-colored chiffon kitchen curtains, I watch my friend from the oblong window. Her courage to sing vanished when her lymph nodes were soaked in chemo then zapped by radiation. She now walks the labyrinth every morning to its center where her healing begins. Tessa greets the lavender wings of dragonflies and vermillion butterflies that we painted on stones laid one after the other.

Once she walks out of the labyrinth, she visits the daisies with their yellow ochre eyes,

red raspberry buds and leaves, purple chicory, and snowdrop plants in the garden. She gathers a bouquet adding bright goldenrods to bring to her vase, half full with water from the stream behind her house.

Tessa catches her breath and sits with her cat “Mademoiselle Leona” brushing through

her legs. The cat’s olive-green tail dances between Tessa’s ankles. I cut honeydew melon

in crescent-shaped moon slices. My friend takes a bite and says, my tongue needs this sweetness. I’ve waited for months to see her eat any berries, mangoes, papayas, all of

her favorite fruits.

When her hair started falling out on the rojo rug, she also lost her appetite. Her flesh shrunk. I see the outline of her rib cage each time she steps into the warm water of the

free-standing tub. It’s time for my bath, she mumbles under her breath. I follow her after sliding her bouquet into the vase. She will gaze at it in the corner of the bathroom porcelain sink. I sit behind her and pour honeysuckle shampoo in my hand to gently wash her hair.

I hold blonde strands of it in my hands, careful not to let her see them. She hums the tune again, It Is Well with My Soul. She gazes at her bouquet of wildflowers she has gathered. Her sweet honeydew breath in my left ear.

Reference: “It Is Well with My Soul,” also known as “When Peace, Like a River.”

Melody by Phillip Bliss. Lyrics by Horatio Gates Spafford. 

"Purple chicory"

drawing by Jerrice J Baptiste

Jerrice J Baptiste is an artist, poet, and author

of nine books. Her most recent book is titled 

‘Coral in the Diaspora’ (Abode Press, 2024). 

She’s been nominated twice for a Pushcart Prize,

and has been nominated for Best of the Net. Her

work is published or forthcoming in Spirit Fire Review, One Art: Poetry Journal, Neologism Poetry, The Write Launch, Lolwe, The Banyan Review, Ecotheo Review, Mantis, The Yale Review, The Lake, Artemis Journal, and hundreds of others. She facilitates poetry as a returning teaching artist at The Omega Institute in Rhinebeck, New York. Her poems & collaborative songwriting are featured on the Grammy-nominated album, “Many Hands: Family Music for Haiti.”

September 2025 issue