Tag: Prayer

“Hallelujah people lai liao!*”:

lanterns lit our path into a house of—God

have mercy—sex, flesh hiding beneath

frail smiles, our offers of cookies and prayer.

.

A dark-skinned girl wearing

a cross, which I could not bear

to look, reached for us; we embraced

her in a cocoon of indistinguishable bodies.

.

Clasped hands catching crumbs

of lost words and bowed heads

sculpted petitions to our Father. Amen,

we said, a thousand questions

.

unspoken among us,

each struggling to soar, to find a home

where every answer burns

a gentle fire to light up a long, long night.

.

* “lai liao”: literally come already in Chinese 

9 November 2014

.

Your daughter feeds you. Baby

spoon lingers on pale lips, like

a question, I imagine, drifting

at the edge of your memory

.

as you search for me there–

a letter without a word,

folding, never touching itself–

aimlessly. The Elder gestures

.

for me to hold your hand.

I feel your dry skin open,

swallowing the wavering

unfamiliarity between us

.

as we pray. Our eyes are closed:

I am comforted by their shadows,

where distance is immeasurable.

You do not know me, or I,

.

you, who are related

only by the name

by which our pleas coalesce

then dissipate like vapour.

.

As the last of the Elder’s

words journey towards their destination,

I look up. Your eyes light up

as we say together, amen.