by Joseph Milosch
Sleeping with sedated pain, Patsy
rests her arm on top of her blue-
checkered blanket. Outside
the window of our bedroom grows
an orange tree. Behind the fruit tree
stands a poplar, fresh with buds.
Behind it a conifer. Behind the pine
a hawk, a plane, and the edge
of the horizon. Everything seems
to hints at the immeasurable
distance between heaven and earth.
“Because it makes me feel selfish, I
wonder if it is alright to pray for miracles,”
she said. Let her sleep deep, I pray,
recalling the fallen feather found
in the grass and the smile
my gift brought to her face. “I feel
unworthy praying for a total cure,
but I can’t help praying for one.”
I wanted to answer; but it was less
painful to point to a hawk, to hold
her hand, watch the clouds, and talk
about the picnic, where rain dripped
from oranges and asparagus.
At three my great-grandfather
taught me the prayer his father
said to his mother. The same prayer
he said after placing me beside his wife.
She was dying, and I was there so she
could kiss me goodbye. They prayed
for God to send angels to guide her over
the desolate space between the two worlds.
Behind and around me are the intimacies
of silence or prayer, of watching each other
dress or undress, and of sleeping or reading.
Outside our window in the northern mysteries
of distance, I mistake a crow for a hawk.