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In My Prayers
You are in my prayers
such as they are,
which is to say imperfect,
bound together with a bit of biodegradable twine
and sprouted in a shovel full of compost
yearning like the veins
on a translucent yellow leaf
earnest but
not ever quite what the scholars imagined.
Neither the ecstatic precision of
a mystic on cosmic time
counting each sujood as an essential detail in the
unfurling of some great global lotus of prayer,
nor the hafizah who corrects the
timing of my salaam
seem to motivate the kind of
principled obedience I might
expect from myself.
It seems my heart has always some
stray hair
or unintentional caress
to dole out in exactly the wrong circumstance.
It seems I am always falling backwards
out of the parable, and onto the floor
unkempt and smiling.
such as they are,
which is to say imperfect,
bound together with a bit of biodegradable twine
and sprouted in a shovel full of compost
yearning like the veins
on a translucent yellow leaf
earnest but
not ever quite what the scholars imagined.
Neither the ecstatic precision of
a mystic on cosmic time
counting each sujood as an essential detail in the
unfurling of some great global lotus of prayer,
nor the hafizah who corrects the
timing of my salaam
seem to motivate the kind of
principled obedience I might
expect from myself.
It seems my heart has always some
stray hair
or unintentional caress
to dole out in exactly the wrong circumstance.
It seems I am always falling backwards
out of the parable, and onto the floor
unkempt and smiling.