before she curled up to sleep on the bench, the woman lit a match and burned a small piece of paper she had rolled up. it was a prayer. she wore an old sweatshirt with a ruffled dickey on it, the sort of thing a grandnephew might give for Christmas. people come to the river all the time and burn little prayers. sometimes, in the absence of fire, they leave them on a bench or the wall in case God walks by. the entire wharf is an altar and we are all offered up.
Category Archives: summer
haze is all the rage and fashion
yes, it’s a new baptism over everything
and yes, Yeorgi, there is rain
and the rumor of rain; but all the signs
are not so favorable as to embolden
what we think of as faith
the coming rapture looks like mass heat stroke
Summer School
There are lessons buried
in the backyard rose of sharon:
find the sun, dig under
packed dirt for water
wait for the rain — bloom
facing the inevitable Fall.