“In Gisselle Yepes’ poem, “On Ritual Washing” we feel how loss eradicates individuation’s singularities, making of a grieving mother many bodies who “carries coffins in her chest.” Grief is a different kind of being buried alive in the geography of pain. The ritual cleansing of the dead is then brought to the living as an act of love when lost love’s debilitating ache undoes our sense of belonging:

the ritual cleansing of the living can be a way to bring them home to us.”

heidi andrea restrepo rhodes, past editor of the Apogee Journal
after “On Ritual Washing”