Accidental Prayer
Birds of Prey
Called Back
Mingo County Men
On Earth as It Is in Heaven
Runaway
Accidental Prayer
Andrew Hemmert
Maybe you’re not dead, just dead-tired.I understand you, heavenly father,
with your feet up on the universe
and a bottle of entropy
or unfiltered time leaving a ring
on the cover of some book you bought
thinking surely you will read this
on your days off, but now
you’re too exhausted to do anything
except text your old friends
who live now in different cities,
or is it galaxies?
It feels like it’s been years because it has.
And you say to yourself
at least this job, being everything,
is better than the last one,
which was being nothing.
I want to ask if it was anything
like my last job,
bolting calipers onto axles
in a factory that felt like it went on forever,
all piercing lights and safety glasses
and cement floors
gravity crushed us against like chalk.
Maybe you don’t text at all
because it feels too much
like waiting for prayers to arrive,
which is work.
In any case, I admit I miss the feeling
of… Read more »