Today's poem is Prayer by Claire Millikin. It is read by Gibson Fay-LeBlanc.
Prayer
On the corner of Oak and Congress, a man's alone on his knees.
At first, I think he's praying, then he bends deeper,
crawling, reaching toward a building's gray
stone exterior, something to hold him.
Midday, mother-of-pearl light, fitful rain —
I'm about two yards away on this sidewalk jagged
with passersby. And suddenly I'm frozen,
because I used to live in a car, a long time ago,
when I was much younger, and I remember
accepting invitations to dinner and whatever,
and kneeling, and storing my clothes
in two plastic garbage bags and how I kept them clean —
the garbage bags — wiping them down
each morning like making a bed.
Only for a few months.
Seeing him, I flinch, don't want to go near —
afraid of his need, scared to offer a hand,
lift him up, ask if he could use some help.
Which, clearly, he could. More than rehab.
He needs the past to be undone,
whatever landed him here, kneeling,
crawling along a busy sidewalk
in the charitable midday drizzle. Tender
and nubile spring sky, it's like no one sees him.
I want to be one who kneels down
beside him saying, hey, old man it's okay —
as I walk closer I see he's old, white-haired —
frantic-eyed, he leverages
his broken body against that wall and tries
to hold on, to sit up without tipping. Maybe
he's my age. It gets hard to tell these days, as I grow older
who's with me. Who's mine. Still afraid —
what am I so afraid of —
I skirt him like a mirror
and intimately walk away.