To pray in tongues

you’ve dismissed.

To think in ways

others distrust.

To use money

like a shovel

to dig

for time.

To cross

the grasslands

between us with

a tongue like

a machete

cleanly

sweeping

a path.

To weep

when the pain

won’t stop.

To breathe slowly

when the weeping

won’t stop.

To insist

that friends

don’t pamper you

or look at you

as sentenced

or contagious.

To slap the thought

from their eyes

with your heart.

To climb the days

like mountains

for moments

like summits

where the light

spreads your face

and the constant

wind makes you forget

the pains in

getting there.

To stand as tall

as the weight

you are bearing

will allow.

To rely

on your spirit

which waits within

like a thoroughbred

for the heel

of your will

in its ribs.

To feel

the vastness

of night

and know

you still

have love

to fill it.

To accept

you can snuff

in a gust, but

to stay devoted

to the art

of flicker.

In Voices Half as Loud

IN VOICES HALF AS LOUD

The MRI bounced its waves across my skull

and there, below, like some magnetized pond,

cerebral fluid pressing on my brain,

the bone worn through. Craniotomy was

on order. I was admitted and pumped with

Dilantan to prevent seizures and the injection

well was slipped in a vein on my right forearm,

#18, taped and initialed. And the anesthetist

came to interview: Had I ever been under? Was I

mildly or moderately aware? Would I call myself

nervous? She said, “Don’t be alarmed if you

wake with a tube down your throat.

It’s there to help you breathe.”

My family came great distances,

unsure what to say. I felt well, alive,

afraid this liturgy would pour the spirit

off my brain. I had dreams of my surgeon

tipping my agitated head like an immature

coconut; he breathing gingerly through his

mask; me hovering above the swollen canister

that was me. The kind Irish nurse came on her

day off to show my wife where I’d wake, where

they’d stir me to make sure I would wake and

dilate and squeeze their well-trained fingers.

We began to pray for a miracle. What had I done?

What could we do? We prayed for a miracle.

To her God, to my God, to anything

more commanding than we. Dear friends

gave us crystals, highly polished with

their care. And another, a petal from Lipa

in the Philippines where Mary once appeared.

They say she loved the air till it rained petals,

hours of red from the sky. The petal, in a locket,

in a soft gold purse. And we prayed for a miracle,

not knowing how to ask. Over and over, till the face

on our heart stretched in pain. Give us a miracle

and we shall speak of it when the winters are too

cold for anyone to care. Give us a safe inexplicable