A Gentler and More Durable Prayer

She shared her shoulders with me twice, the second time in a dim light at two a.m., the soft curve of her breasts meeting where shadows began, an intimacy that undid my lifelong emphasis on images. When the altar is ruined, a gentler and more durable prayer begins. God is always the way you can best apperceive Her, which apperception is what God is. The snow stops falling around the time we begin chores, the horses stomping fast-melting snow into mud, chickens scrawing for early Spring worms. A lot is revealed at the juncture where one is no longer allowed to say "late" or "not too late." The man decries his residence on Main Street, yet the landscape is oddly welcoming, reminding him of a collective he has too long disdained. Shall we gather at Golgotha and repent? Shall we revisit the old motel in Albany and rehearse again the unity of our shared body? Yesterday when I looked in the mirror, a chickadee gazed back, long enough to remind me of a confused and lonesome man whose gift for baking bread has never reached his own hunger. "Not yet," whispers the Lord. "Not yet my child but soon."