Prayer

PRAYER / Bruce Bond Little by Uttle, I have learned to Uve on honeydew and cigarettes. It has nothing to do with forgetting: I know about the past, forgave my parents my disappointment, repeating forgiveness till these Ups took it over Uke a prayer. I long to be a letter to paradise— my body, thin and given, a kind word, as though it were heaven's desire for me to vanish into the charity and horror of God's white hands. I have waited in the dark Ut by the whorish Ught of African fish: propane-blue parachutes shredded in the trees. There's always a black, diaphanous one—swaUowing. I used to fear I would faU through the mouth of our toUet. When my mother strapped me to the seat, I squirmed Uke a monkey astronaut. Catherine of Siena, you understand what a mother does to her chUd when she needs to take away the milk. She puts something bitter there. 156 · The Missouri Review No bitterness tonight. I love this room. Floating in the bath, these hands break their long, maternal lease. They sUp through heaven's needle. --?¡mmtmmm /Jlw mmm The guy who föirifedl «al/ fjhosö ua-éerfall scenes, p/os six cítlnec fo^joéÊen American artists, Bruce Bond The Missouri Review · 157 ...