"Kiss the Quivering Lip" by Stephan Bauman

Families
Wrapped their loved ones
In linens beautiful.
Some wrote epithets
Of grief
Of love
And attached it
To their feet.

Some
Desperate
Some opportunistic
Stole the shoes and clothes
Of the dead.
Naked we come
Naked we go.

There was man
I know him
He rescued
Two, three
And then four more.

I was told a mother ran in
As others ran out.
She flung her body
Across her child.
None greater
They say
Than she who gives her life
For another.

Thamar
Had a baby today
She named her
Jesula,
"God with us".
Her family waited
Until after birth
To tell of her firstborn son:
"He's gone
To where Jesula
Has come."
She wailed, "Please, no, please
Bring him to me,
Please?"

Chase this crowded room
This press of humanity
This weight of history;
Triage the punctured soul
Wash the suffering wound
And breathe the dying flicker.

Lay
Your gentle head
O Mercy
Upon this Haitian bosom
Of anguish
Of grief
And kiss the quivering lip
Of mother
Of child
Of sinner
Of saint.

(from underthemango.com)