(with 1st line by Judy Ireland)
1.
I stand prayerless on your threshold.
2.
I stand on your threshold
choking, my mouth
stuffed with prayers.
3.
Every prayer the wind at my back,
you, my threshold.
4.
The prayers curses, a scream
blocks the threshold. Listen too long
and turn to stone.
5.
Too lonely to pray, I curl
at your threshold, hands
outstretched as if I might
gather air, make a thick braid
to climb down from the balcony.
6.
The threshold gone, I stand
in an emptiness, an archless
archway, you at dinner,
my prayers your crudité,
your plum gravy, your
raspberry millefeuille.
7.
Prayers like feathers
molting by your feet,
you smile at the threshold
still wielding the bloody dagger.
8.
Fragments of prayer—
a shredded, stained curtain
blown over the threshold.
9.
Sinks like a brick
thrown in a pond,
this prayer I think
far from any threshold.
10.
We walk across
the threshold of each other,
prayers like moths
winging in our mouths.
