Golden
A prayer begins & endseach meeting, it
starts with the word God& ends with the word
difference. The difference,
as far as I can tell,between what is offered
& what is possible
is a chasm. At times it seemswe simply run out of places
to be, until we call whereverwe end up home,
that bright moment wealways talk about
returning to. My friend
is in the room he grew up in,the room his grandma
died in, beggingfor morphine, like all of us
will. Unlike
some of us, she begged for itall his life. He’d find it, prepare
the needle, dim
the lights. Things gotquiet then—a bust of Jesus
on a bookshelf, translucentyellow, like piss
or money that has been in the laketoo long. Golden,
which is how we got heretoday. God, Gold, Gollem—not
a lot of space between them.
Prayer
You claim that a person who begsis praying
& that a…
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The American Poetry Review (Digital) - 1 Issue, November/December 2022