The weight and heft
of it, this rough
unyielding thing.
Maybe it drips
tar-like from your fingers,
a thick hot shame
of words you can’t say.
Is it a wordless sputter
that feels like nothing at all?
How tightly are you
holding in the cage
of your hands the fierce
body of the prayer
you’re afraid to let go,
and to what?
What others have called
sweet incense, feather,
breath—your prayer
is none of these.
Lay it down on the ground
if you can.
Lay it down before you.
It’s okay if you can’t say it.
If there’s blood on it.
It’s all right.
Who knows what silence can receive.
Published in Cider Press Review, Volume 23, Issue 5.
Kathleen Wakefield has published two books of poetry, Notations on the Visible World (2000) which won the 1999 Anhinga Prize for Poetry and Grip, Give and Sway (Silver Birch Press, 2016). Her poems have appeared in such journals as the Beloit Poetry Journal, Blueline, The Georgia Review, Hubbub, Image, Midwest Quarterly, Poetry, Rattle, River Styx, Sewanee Review, and Shenandoah. She has taught creative writing at the Eastman School of Music and as a poet-in-the-schools.
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