Every Tear A Prayer by Angie Minkin
It never rains in LA, but today it pours. Your daughter knits warmth from fine Peruvian wool — night blues, slate gray, splash of orange. Her fingers can’t stop. She tenderly tucks you in. Your son trims your beard, gently combs your hair, smooths your eyebrows. You always look so sharp. We toast you with Glenlivet 18, hot pastrami on rye, Kringles from the Danish bakery downtown. The bluegrass guitar and banjo send honey-prayers to all the gods. Pastor Mark recites last rites and draws the nonbelievers together. Each tear is a prayer of thanksgiving, says he. Bertie curls next to you, quietly guards your journey. She licks your hand as you take your last, sweet breath and slide between worlds. Breath of fire, breath of tears, breath of light. The full moon, the scudding clouds.
Angie Minkin lives in San Francisco, where she writes by gray sea light. Her work has been published in several journals and she is a coauthor of Dreams and Blessings: Six Visionary Poets (2020). Angie is a poetry editor of Vistas & Byways Literary Review. “Every Tear A Prayer” won first prize in Prose Poem Category of the 2020 Keats Soul-Making Literary Competition and is published here for the first time.