As/Is







8.26.2004


Syllable (prayer)

syllable rolled
from breath and flesh it came

from something older than
the rest of me,

stories whispering themselves over
and over not waiting but

expecting the bright cold day in April,

the dark and
stormy night,

the girl with her fall of steel
rope hair over the tower wall, syllable,
tell me a trouble,

the trouble

comes when I swallow restless
tasteless things needing to be

said to become
in this world
built from
days
stacked like
plates.

pray for us, not with your lips
they were made for other

purposes your spider hands, too,
manipulating thumb & forefingers

into the broader space around
us don't

wait pray for us pray into the

delicate vaulted cathedral of your
everbeating heart.