A PRAYER THING

God within is not more fragile,

although it breathes in sickness;

God within is not less merciful,

although it’s hurt in anonymity.

I touch the wooden frame of my bed,

in amateurish prayer,

in lack of thoroughness,

reaching for safety in unconfessed desperation.

My grasp is empty then and weak,

but full of beloved faces somehow it manages

to sink that inconspicuous solitude of fear

into a vast oneness of relief.