Prayer in a Time of Sickness (audio only)
Click the icon above to listen to this audio poem.
I was there at the edge of Never,
of Once Been, bearing the night’s hide
My privilege and my proof, pressing your eternal skin to mine— I feel your fingers touching down on the crown of my head where I pray they remain during this life and in the next. The intricacies of your world astound me. You flickered through the rooms where my mother dwelt, when I was naked and formless as a seal, sensitive to the tides of her body.
The son I’ll never have is crossing the lawn. He is lying on an imaginary bed,
the coverlet pulled up over his knees—knees I don’t dare describe.
I recoil from imagining him as meat and bone, as a mind
and hands stroking the fur of his pet rabbit.
I never gave him the accordion I used to play, my mother and I