My Prayer

Only once in my life have I prayed before eating
It was a cloudy morning
The pouches under my eyes had grown fat after the sleepless night
And my sweet baby was making breakfast and crooning
When I saw her
I lost my mind
I came up to her on my knees from behind
I lifted the hems of her nightgown up to the waist
Like a theatre curtain
I could think of no match for this performance
The astonishingly round ass wouldn’t let
The hems slide down
There was no underwear beneath the nightgown
The vertical line dividing the butt cheeks reached
Her bare feet
And that long line was intersected above
By the little horizontal lines dividing
The cheeks from the thighs
And before that concave cross
I said the sincerest prayer of the world
Kissing the hollow cross after each letter of my prayer
And when
Having lost my patience
I crucified myself on this live cross
And the breakfast jolted out of the poor girl’s hands right into the sink
And the dishes smashed
Because of the hammering blows of the thrusting nail
I lavishly absolved all the sins
Of all living beings
Amen