Prayer Book by Lisa Zaran
In the hospital chapel room I read
prayers from the living in a great
leather book addressed to God.
Words waver across the page about
the nature of a loved one’s life
and it’s significance, it’s impact.
I can tell how these prayers
are hanging by a thread, by
the watermark of tears that stain the page.
At 9 p.m. no one is here but me.
My father lays dying two floors above.
I realize there are others
who know how it feels to exist
disembodied, whose hope is barely
an audible whisper
dangling somewhere in the darkest
chamber of the heart.
I do not add to the prayer book.
I say to God instead,
don’t ask me to ask You for anything.
End the drama already.
Lisa Zaran is an American poet, essayist, occasional interviewer and the author of six collections. Her first book, the sometimes girl, was recently the focus of a year long translation course in Germany. She is the founder and editor of Contemporary American Voices, an online journal of poetry, which has now been approved to be used as the subject of study for a translation course in Germany.
