Prayer

 

For all

the pain

passed down

the genes

or latent

in the very grain

of being;

for the lordless

mornings,

the smear

of spirit

words intuit

and inter;

for all

the nightfall

neverness

inking

into me

even now,

my prayer

is that a mind

blurred

by anxiety

or despair

might find

here

a trace

of peace.

 



Memories Mercies



Memory’s mercies

mostly aren’t

but there were

I swear

days

veined with grace

like a lucky

rock

          ripping

electrically over

whatever water

there was—

ten skips

 twenty

in the telling:

all the day’s aches

eclipsed

and a late sun

belling

even Leroy 

back

          into his body

to smile

at some spirit-lit

tank-rock

skimming the real

so belongingly

no longing

   clung to it

when it plunged

bright as a firefly

into nowhere,

I swear.

Christian Wiman’s most recent book is Zero at the Bone: Fifty Entries Against Despair (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2023).

Also by this author
Published in the August 15, 2014 issue: View Contents
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