FUNERAL ORNAMENT WITH HALF-PALMETTE (III)
Anderson Peguero II
Not a night in nine years has gone by in which I forget
To obliterate myself. Prayer is only
The reduction of all I am into ritual. I figure
I’m frail enough. If this body can fit
Into the space between the words of the Lord,
Maybe He will overlook me. Everything
Can fit into ritual; all the shame of autonomy decimated
And replaced with the facelessness of worship.
People like me go missing all the time,
Mama used to say, tucking me in and making sure to retrieve the
Small pink pocket New Testament from under pillow.
You have to know when you pray that you will be disappointed,
She would whisper, after a tender smooch to my forehead.
What I remember is the very same kiss bestowed upon
Aunt Spotty at her wake. As it turns out, her prayers couldn’t
Annihilate the cancer, but it could convince God
To take her away instead. Don’t ask to be healed: ask
To be claimed. After it all, we become servants of one god
Or another. Without even knowing it, I used to pray
For God to be the one to find my soul first
If I were ever to go missing. Does it seem like he’s listening
To you?
There is an intimacy like nothing else
In prayer with an audience. Remember, in the black of the basement,
I am reading very slowly a letter to my father
And God. (If you go too quickly, you could blur
Between the lines, and become invisible again.)
I remember the man after, golden ankh heavy around his neck,
How instead of a prayer he gives a sermon. His name
Might have been Peter. Three times he states how disappointed he was
By my supplication. The agony, tearing him asunder,
To hear a fellow black man relinquish his faith. From my fellow
Black men, I have only ever been
Relinquished.
Anderson Peguero II (he/him/his) is a writer and artist primarily based out of New York City. is a writer and artist based in New York City. He has a number of passions ranging from visual art to photography to creative writing. His poetry has appeared in Figure One, Bad Pony Mag, Quarto Magazine, and more. He graduated from Columbia University in 2019 with a degree in psychology. Learn more on his website.