Prayer

May the granite weight of regret
slip from your back. May memory
provide a clean room, its great windows
open to a fixed star, hard and apart.
May unpunctuated silence hold you.

Mourning for what never was shall be
an oasis, sihaya, relieving the pallid desert
of uncountable years. Sweet tears,
thank an unnamed kindness, mother-soft.
Yours to wear: a stainless coat, blue.