An Even Smaller Prayer

Within 24 Months

You all told me I was beautiful so I slept with you (filmmaker,
attorney, America's poet-on-call and doctor of mathematics.)

I've been told this is something only boys are supposed to admit.

Guess what? Now you are all inside an antique hat box on a shelf
in the back of my bedroom closet. I've sculpted and baked you
into small figurines and rubber-banded you to perfectly penned
thank you notes offering my appreciation for each brief shelter
from my solitary storm.

I mean a lonely girl struggling with the proverbial themes of love,
longing, grief and despair is damned grateful for whatever small
comforts she receives in such a seemingly cold world.

Every morning, before coffee or clothes, I creep into the closet,
pull the box down from it's hiding place, and hold my sweet breath
while I take off the lid. I unband you from your cards, re-read my
words, kiss you all in the most frail spot I can remember and say
to myself that the past keeps telling us what the future is about.

This small practice of acknowledged imperfection has become an
even smaller prayer. Father, please love us, for we know not what we do?

copyright 2005 "megdoeswords"