Prayer
Sally Rosen Kindred
Don't let me walk these woods again in white corrective shoes. Not again, wet pines, my mother the shade unbroken. And not what's coming: thin wingbones of light flap through branches and fracture a bit of skin on my knee or hand. The doll in my arms is losing her left eye. Don't let it land where it must in the brush, black and unblinking. Ahead where silver trunks bend is the place I'll break through to return. Lord, don't let me witness this: mossy light flooding the yard, a nest on fire in the tree.