When I pray this is how I pray

Hands clasped before me on my pillow

Curled on my side

Before the day has breached the raw and sleepy ramparts

Here where the call to prayer is too loud to be overrun by lists or fears

Of not enough, not good enough,

Of being devoted to a thing that does not exist

Hope or something

And might not care

Love or something

And might not be able to change my world

Without my unlikely and awkward assistance

Because I have hands and it does not.

Before any of that can creep in

While my brain is still soft and muzzy

I pray without thinking just pray without asking

How

I pray with the quiet wings of birds and angels

That I, too,

Might fly.