Joanie Mackowski

PRAYER

That the hole in my skull never quite grows over
with mosses or brick. That no lover
on a ladder can patch it, not even a shadow
can fold its hands over. For there’s too much to know.
There’s too much to want never to contain.
That the backbone beanstalk shoots up through the tiny
roof that I stand for, that I’m never too cluttered
with mud to reflect: for the tongue grows tired
of holding up the sky. That the flood never fails,
each puddle an ocean, each rise a falls,
each salt breath coaxing new oxygen
from the deep’s own lungs. That the skull bones join
together as clouds, easing out the storm
then breaking apart.

JOANIE MACKOWSKI’s recent work has appeared in Poetry, Slate, and Pool, and a book of poems, The Zoo, was published by University of Pittsburgh Press in 2002. Mackowski is an assistant professor with the University of Cincinnati’s Department of English and Comparative Literature.

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