New Year Prayer

a prayer in real time

there are about
a million things
to speak against:

from the definition of ownership
to the desecration of the packed dirt,
from the definition of borders
to the desecration
of my own
body.

words do not erase
the ink on the judge’s papers,
the surveyor’s lines,
the letter stamped on your birth certificate.

words do not
breathe life back into
the ones we love,
or back into
the days we let slip past.

but
these
words are here
to pick the lock,
to lift the window.
please
climb out.
i’m coming too.

this is a prayer
in real time:

listen to it in your
coughing engine,
in that radio commercial,
in the hold music.
this is a prayer
that drowns out your boss
and the bill collector
and the preacher who sells hell.
the world is more
than dust and sinew.

i call you
holy,
i call us holy,
i call it all
holy.