Trip Toward Prayer

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                        You can’t pray with a clenched brain 
                        Or fall asleep with fisted hands; 
                        But force one finger open at a time 
                        Until thoughts clatter loose and fall 
                        Like budded balls of crumpled paper. 

Focus on God: O vast, universal wall 
on which I bounce my head and words; 
which catches every other prayer 
spattered with tears, 
and returns the rest rebounding on my ears. 

                                                A child bored in church, I’d climb on to 
                                                            my daddy’s lap 
                                                saying, “Hold me.” Then cleverly feign 
                                                sleep, furtively turning the lead in his 
                                                            mechanical pencil, 
                                                flipping his tie clasp. 

Hear my sincere prayer 
when I have phrased an eloquence 
of motivating words. 

                                                What words can you impress on the law? 
                                                While speeding a shouting baby toward an 
                                                            overdue nap 
                                                a red light flashes a sickening through my 
                                                            feet. 
                                                Officer, sir, after you citate me, 
                                                wordlessly berate me, 
                                                glaring at the peace sign in the window, 
                                                remember you are not the only one who 
                                                            hates me; 
                                                as traffic peers around us, for a moment 
                                                            only, 
                                                with uniform authority, hold me. 

Yet we know one another somewhat; 
since the time when as a threshold girl 
I found that if I prayed for what I most loved 
You’d take it—to make me strong, they said. 
Weak since that time, I pray for less, 
and though I know You know I know You know 
                        I know You know, 
I am content with all things given, 
overwhelmed with love. 
                                                Sleep, little one. 
                                                Lord, don’t let this first warmth 
                                                be the beginning of measles. 
                                                I hate this creaking chair of so many hours, 
                                                the vulgar, noisy trains. Go to sleep! 
                                                I’ll blow my morning midterm. Can’t you 
                                                at eleven little months, understand? 
                                                I press her closer, kiss her kitten hair, 
                                                and think of mental hospitals where people 
                                                safe in separate cells can scream 
                                                and scream their voices into salt. 
                                                The thought relaxes us both, 
                                                held asleep in the moving chair. 

Giver of all I can give away—
no, more than that; 
for you once granted forgiveness and reward 
on subsequent days. I have not forgotten. 

                                                Soon the drab morning and this stupid, 
                                                            stupid war, 
                                                which though it does not touch us most 
                                                            directly, 
                                                still we wear a similar uniform of human 
                                                            skin 
                                                which stinks with the blood of our 
                                                many-sized brothers.

                                                            My love, 
                                                The baby has the measles after all . . . 
                                                a term paper due tomorrow . . . 
                                                About your adjustment to military life . . .
                                                Cease this cheerful written chatter. 
                                                Listen, let me say this—
                                                I can’t take it anymore 
                                                I can’t take it 
                                                                        hold me! 
This baby and this man 
            infinitely dear, 
Bless them all you can. 

A single light ray pricks the palm of my brain 
Informing it with wonder—a word of love 
With forgotten implications, most simple, most complete.
Yes, it was the first word you taught me 
To say with pre-flesh lips 
Clearly and with love, 
Lost in contending Wall, Giver, Forgiver, 

Yet I lift it to thee now with new light—
that word father, 
Father. 

                                    Hold me.