Alina Kalontarov

How to Pray

                after Kelly Grace Thomas

‍

Give up the ghost. A love gone
cold in the night. Take your spare
life out of the suitcase. Stale
as a mothball moon. Hold a body
underwater. Your own. Return
to the house that raised you.
Gather wood. Watch it burn.
Know your instruments: knees, mouth,
a gulp of sky. Dirty deeds
go on a string. Finger them
like beads in church. Ask
for the one true thing 
you really want. Hand to heart.
The one true thing. Listen.
A sparrow in the rafters,
preacher and poet
trilling on about god.

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