Prayer from a Mouse


Dimensionless One, can you hear me? 
Me with the moon ears, caught 
in ice branches?
	
Beneath the sky’s long house,
beneath the old snake tree,
I pray to see even a fragment
of you—
 			whiskers ticking
 
a deserted street,
a staircase leading 
to the balcony
of your collarbone.

Beloved King of Stars, I cannot 
contain my animal movements.

For you I stay like a mountain.
For you I stay like a straight pin.
		
But in the end, the body leaves us 
its empty building. 

Midnight petulant
as a root cellar. Wasps crawling  
in sleeves. I sleep 

with my tail over 
my face, enflamed.

Oh Great Cataloguer 
of Snow Leaves, I pray 
that you may appear 
and carry every piece 
of my fur in your hands.

Copyright © 2013 by Sarah Messer. Used with permission of the author. This poem appeared in Poem-A-Day on November 29, 2013. Browse the Poem-A-Day archive.