An Attempt at a Wish

Do not touch that boat of mine,

it has wings made from the fins of orcas;

from pilgrims a little dread and a little awe,

it swaddles words

soaked in the night's urine,

in the corner sits my grandfather,

and deeper still, a cobbler's bench.

That boat —

oh, you, my highest one,

if it were a temple boat

and feared the breaching of its hull,

hang sails of rowan from it;

it would sail back through the oaken gates.

You taught me:

Prayer is not a shadow,

but always a deed.

I feel that boat,

the battered one,

kicked in the flanks by iron boots…

So that boat, an eight-oar at the very least,

would soak into the earth;

along the throat of Prague's embankments

the feet of nuns go pattering.

To this day the morning mist rises here,

it holds within it the heart of cnidarians,

a timetable, all the arrhythmias,

a symbiosis of darkness and the rough scar of vocal cords.

Lord God,

do something at last.

Rid me of questions.