Sleepwalking into prayer
The rain that was falling
fell on the righteous
and on the sinners,
fell on your beard
fell on the curls along my neck.
Everything soaked.
No part of you was not now darkened
by the watery, warmless touch of autumn rain;
the shoes near my front doorway,
slipped off in exhaustion, drenched.
When I turned off the light
it was the first time
in four months
I did not kneel beside my bed
to pray. To pray and at some point
use your name, let it float
in the hanging air, into the candle smoke
into the blankets and the wooden floor
the pile of papers on the reading chair,
the chair collecting a puddle:
damp clothes, sadness.
Somewhere between midnight and morning
my knees and palms awoke
more lucid than my mind.
My kneecaps found the cold boards
and my fingers formed a temple atop
the tangle of sheets. Still half asleep,
my body searched itself
for what was missing, the part of the day
left unfinished.
I was in between waking and sleeping
no words, no Father in Heaven or Hallowed by Thy Name
or Encircle your good servant, the one that I love
and Keep him safe from harm or temptation,
do not let him go wasted and unloved. No.
The prayer I said was a position, no sound.
The only way left to ask
was with my body, my arms
my legs and my kneecaps and my hair
still wet with rain like your hair
still wet with rain. Every fiber of me
asked after every fiber of you.
The bones of my bone, the flesh of my flesh;
I do not know how else to ask
what to call you.
I have seen
a good number march before me,
the procession of thirty years,
unsuitable and unfit to be my partner.
You have said the same.
My mind can rationalize and accept,
but it is the body
the inches of skin and the muscles
in the arms that strain at right angles
the wrestling in the middle of the night
for a blessing,
it is the body that continues
the conversation; the body shaped
like a comma as it hugs the side
of the bed, soaked in sweat and rain
waiting for the rest of the sentence
the rest of the story
the sleep that comes
from completion.
