Small Prayer to the God of Epiphany (audio only)
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I wish I were like Johnny Cash
& thought my heart was mine.
I’ve worn a black suit
my entire life. It suits the war
my eyes ignite.
My sins sit on my lap,
bald, blind, desperate
for the mercy of lost roads,
glottal white lines.
for Michele Antoinette Pray-Griffiths
Ordinary days deliver joy easily
again & I can't take it. If I could tell you
how her eyes laughed or describe
the rage of her suffering, I must
admit that lately my memories
are sometimes like a color
warping in my blue mind.
I pick you up
& you are a child made of longing
clasped to my neck. Iridescent,
lovely, your inestimable tantrums,
I carry you back & forth
from the famine in your mind.
Your alphabet wraps itself
like a tourniquet
around my tongue.