For the National Day of Prayer, May 3, 2018
Can anger be a prayer?
Can bile be? Or blisters?
What is the invocation of the immigration lawyer,
asleep on the airport floor? The collect
of the pedestrian-clogged capital, the rite
of the nationwide boycott, the litany for pussy
hats, safety pins, sign-up sheets? What’s the intercession
against pornstar payoffs and pepper spray? Are protests
thumbed on touchscreens antiphons?
Tweet.
Retweet.
And also with you.
What is the prayer made by the door you didn’t slam
at your parent’s house on Christmas day? The throat-lump
you swallowed down with pie. The tongue bitten
was a prayer. The tongue held.
We are learning to make the sign
of crossing the diner to muzzle the rifle
that burns our dark hands.
We are learning to make the signs
out of poster board.
Because
we have not loved our neighbors
as ourselves. We have not loved.
We have not.
The thorns on the roses in the Garden, too, are prayers.
