Raucous Prayer

Here, my one raucous prayer
coaxed from this poor drum,

my double heart, under a beat-up slat
of divine light. It’s habit: I evade 

the foreseeable blessing, this thorn
thief, this fiend for deep bass 
and the dynamics of  burning— 

now bird, now furnace, I’m returning
to love itself. Let me face 
the beginning of sound, first horn, 

origin of dirt and song. We are made
by touch, not terror for tat, 

but one humble pulse in a numb 
abyss. Bet, god breathes this air.

Source: Poetry (September 2025)