Red Hen Press

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"Prayer 21"

This is a prayer for the waste, days, hours

badly spent, forays into the internet jungle-land

of links from the launch of the words symptoms

of recurrent breast cancer. For tangled sheets, and novels

whose plots are long lost, for staring at ceilings in the dark,

trying not to blink. For wasted fivers at coffee shops

or newsstands waiting for delayed flights. For Scrabble,

the weather underground, www whatever dot com, for

catalogs. Trying sweater after earring, convincing myself

I require new shoes and a more neutral color palette.

For staring out the window waiting for dawn, or the mail truck,

or the right line. For lingering near the duck pond

for no good reason. Arranging books alphabetically and

by size. To what end? For cleaning, wiping counters

of someone else's crumbs and butter smears. Cooking

by recipe, generally, an excuse not to be doing something

hard. And hey, why are those trees just standing there?

Bum birds hitched to their bum limbs. Wind blowing

their errant leaf tinsel and what-nots. Everything waiting

for the cows to come home, when they won't, ever.

They're cows, and need to be driven.

This is a love poem for the cows.