South Bend - First Prayer from the Poem a Day Project

So anyway, I’ve not wanted to post my own poems on the blog (why, I don’t know really, I’ve just not wanted to), but since I wrote this on the plane(s) to South Bend, and since I’ll not be doing anything with it for awhile (this poem a day thing is OUT OF HAND), I thought I might as well give it to the ether.



For South Bend, First Prayer



Because, we say. We say
because and because. We say it
and we say it, until it sounds like the ocean
or the wind, because and because.
Until it doesn’t sound like anything at all,
ripping the covers from the books.
Or pictures of horses in the snow.
An example of that where there are no examples.
And then to add a title to make it coherent.
“First Prayer.” Or clothes strewn about the room.
What it felt like, pressing up, to end
as raw material. The saline sky,
approaching Cleveland from the north this morning,
and what I look like now, as there’s a problem
with the jetway. It tastes like a bloody
tooth. And they’re making arrangements,
crawling up the scaffolding. You can ask them
which is the first prayer. The fawn
taken by ants. The blind fawn.
The thousands of ants.
You can call out. And call.