Accepted for publication by
Schuylkill Valley Journal Of The Arts |
Night Prayers to Guadalupe
"No estoy aqui, yo que soy tu madre?" Gaudalupe, Guadalupe, all my clocks have different times the walls drip with the indifference of miraculous vision each shadow a waiting demon. O Fatima, the drone of your rosary scars my throat if faith is the unseen made visible what are these fears this madness layered in all the many layered creation? Lourdes, unknown mother of strength and bewilderment, I too have dreamt God in my severed hands: the memory of each nailed to a different cross. this madness visits me, miracles cannot survive the lengthening night, votives, novenas, the rituals of superstitious hope-filled prayer as if we could summon or protect, as if we knew, this prayer, this twisted doubt-filled incoherent prayer of faith is an old man's winked conceit, a child's reflexive trust, a wish we wish upon ourselves, O Mother of God… Gaudalupe, Guadalupe, all my clocks have different times Guadalupe, come, hold me till sunrise. |