Flickering Prayer

By the flickering light of the television,
In bed late at night
The room otherwise dark,
She closes her eyes and makes her prayer.

Murmuring lips wield phrases from memory,
The talk of the church
Filtered through the viscera
Of a day’s events, people, wonderings, longings.

Fitfully, she rambles through minutiae,
Pauses over topics of greater import,
Loses her rhythm and seizes it again,
Careful to keep a pleading tone from entering her voice,
Knowing that the Lord helps those who help themselves;
That the Lord pities and punishes those who only complain,
Who scorn His gift of life.
She asks and requests,
Sometimes humbly, sometimes almost immoderately,
But always ready to be denied and to accept denial
With the gratitude and equanimity befitting a vessel of His will.

She finishes with an audible, “Amen,”
That escapes with her breath,
A soft and pliable offering,
Barely reaching the edge of the bed,
Before drifting up under the ceiling,
To mingle with the smoke from her last cigarette.

By the bright, steady light of the television,
Her weary head sinks back,
Wisps of hair splayed out gently,
Thinly decorating the pillow
With their ghostly fragility.
She rolls onto her side and tries to sleep.