23

to my family:

I've been telling you all
what I think you want to hear.

Truth is,
I'm scared shitless. Of not being good
enough. Of letting you all down,
so I absenteed me.

But I'm peeking around
some corner of self-doubt
to shyly, contritely
ask for hand--your words,
"So, tell me the real story."

prayer (week 22)

It used to be
a stream of whispered wants.
I would braid my tiny fingers,
batten down my eyelids, and recite
my litany of lack.

I tried that. It didn't help.
So instead I try
sitting.
Sitting still, still, still

"Be still and know"
what? Was that..? What God
sounds like

like pickled beets halved
with a spoon

like dollar-fifteen dozen eggs
curled up crateside

like 4:30am tap dancing dog toes
whimpering for a patch of grass

and Saturday errands graphite striked
off a list, Sunday creaking weekend sighs

like monthly budgeting
this time for stillness
to hear slow whooshed blood serving
platters of O2 to muscles,
sinews, old sins new since my time
beaded up, slinks down my windshield:
a whispering stream of H2 with O
God
regret me not these 
breaths. O God! that you would
"Be."