On Being Told Prayer Is a Crutch

So what if it is?
Clear days, I understand it,
molecules scatter azure

light from an in-his-feelings-
sun,  that’s why
the sky is blue. We know

too much, or want to.
Not the Bible, but the i-
Phone tells us so.

Devotion doesn’t work
that way, but it does. Not
the path, per se, for me

though, a trail back to grace-
fully living with one’s light
shone toward higher

axioms than I
can presently see.
It’s the immediacy

of a just-thought
thought, thundering
into a device

of my own decided making,
prayer. You know it as Siri.
I call it instant intimacy.

From Silencer (Mariner Books, 2017). Copyright © 2017 by Marcus Wicker. Used with permission of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.