Point of Entry

Katherine DiBella Seluja is a pediatric nurse practitioner and the author of Gather the Night: Poems (UNM Press).

Desert Manifest Border Patrol: Truth Be Told All the Heroes Are Silent Report from the Undertaker Because Our Lives Are Small Fires Buried under Dry Fields We Never Admit the burden of a Star Living in our Chest Humanitarian Release To Be Carried This Way I Am Told Their Marriage Was Arranged (Mi amorcito . . .) Carciofo In Your Letter You Asked about Ceremony Monastery in the Desert, Abiquiu, New Mexico Such Is the Story of Leaving My Grandfather Teaches Me How to Flay the Heart Caceroleada Letter to My Suegra from Artesia, New Mexico The Function of Walls De la tormenta: Desert Survival Border Patrol: Por supuesto How to Lose One Thousand Four Hundred Seventy-Five Children Unsigned Affidavit Point of Entry My Grandmother Told the Story This Way Letter from the Sky: Dear Border Postmortem Variations In the Drawer of My Grandmother's Writing Desk, the Dead Rest Consider the Night I Am Told Her Parents Knew Nothing of the Plan Your Grandmother's Bolognese On the Day I Order My Ancestry Kit, I Also Order Scopa Cards We the Dead (Querida . . .) Freight Train The Joy of the Moment Turns Suddenly into a Black Hood with Openings For One Brief and Shining Moment She Held the World in Her Body Three Angel Studies House Made of Fog and Goodwill Lament for Joaquin Macias In the Pima County Medical Examiner's Office Border Response (Deconstructed) Legend of the Compassionate Brigade Cesare's Gift To Be Part of Something Complete and Great I Ask My Grandmother to Repeat the Story Poem with a Writing Studio and a Cherry Tree Growing from Within November Fruit April, in a Town Full of Fools We Are Welcomed Home by the US Border Patrol: La doctora sabe I Am Told They Remained after the War The Trees Were Filled with Blossoms but No Bees (Mi Estrella . . .) Notes Acknowledgements Credits

Katherine Seluja's new book enriches the literature of diaspora and the border. These cogent, clear-eyed poems acknowledge death and injustice but also celebrate phenomenal survival and resilience. Point of Entry is a humane, consistently compelling volume that reminds us what love, courage, and perseverance look like."-Cyrus Cassells, author of The World That the Shooter Left Us "In Point of Entry, Katherine DiBella Seluja examines the fraught, contested body of our southern border. Grounded in our current moment, the book also acknowledges the many journeys, across centuries, that terrified children, adults, and families have taken from one country to another. This is a book that recognizes poetry's duty to witness, to speak, and to question the function of fences and walls."-Jehanne Dubrow, author of Wild Kingdom: Poems "These masterful poems render through body and breath an inner world, an exterior life, a tender, hungry humanity and spirit in action."-Catherine Strisik, author of The Mistress "With her usual keen attention, sharp eye, and lush language, Seluja walks us through fatal journeys, fractured landscapes, and family histories both broken and enduring. These stunning poems hold precious secrets for survival even as they document grief and loss."-Amy Beeder, author of Now Make an Altar