shreds of prayers

[zirconium]

(a response to Luisa A. Ingloria's Preces



All week, I've been trying to steal back enough sleep --
to feather my body back into the plumage of its prime.
This heavy dullness is the reproach of rough moons --
midnight cups of coffee now tar in my blood,
3 a.m. donuts gorgon-stones in my gut.
I know how to live, but my other eight deaths
keep nipping at my heels, demanding
that I earn the honeycakes and the glass of cold milk
they never got to taste. When I do doze off,
red pens and blue pages haunt the soapy ladders
sliding out of my dreams. But all the world is a jar
of fireflies, each blink of light
a microscopic tearing
at the veils around my heart:
joy and praise will out, though they set me apart.