I Add Craig to My Prayers

All bones, nose, and trouble. 
It hasn’t been a year 
since he burned the tool shed down 
then crouched, crying, at the back 
of the garden while firemen watered 
the high whipping flames. 

And then, they found the cancer 
on his foot and took 
his leg above the knee. 
Just weeks ago, I pushed him 
to the ground, the devil alive 

and well in him. He’d kept 
pursuing me like before, 
now dropping his crutches 
when they slowed him down. 
He teetered like a sawed tree 

before he fell, and worried me, 
but then was up again 
and in my face. Now 
he lies passively, 
cold beneath a heap 

of quilts in the bed his mother 
has moved to the front room. 
His scalp is pale as fear. 
Who’d have thought I’d go 
To God in his behalf? 

It just seems right. 
Like the way his mother knows 
to keep the curtains closed. 
And how around his bed 
we use our reverent voices.