Prayer 11
By Eva Saulitis
A network of branches crazes
the sky like cracks in the glaze
of a Chinese cup. Dawn, a poised
dropper. History poised also. A man
on the steet corner waves his sign:
Germany 1934. So cold, elbows of trees
creak when something flaps by—
the craw craw craw—
Would I be able to recognize places
in Latvia by my father's absence—
farmyard littered with dented milk cans,
mattresses leaking straw, table set
for a meal that never happened?
Every morning I look out a window
at a scene he wouldn't recognize,
blue tide of sunrise spreading west
obliterating tracks of satellites,
gray tide of inlet shoring up
the wrack-line.
My father steps through his window.
He's put on his SS uniform.
He stands on a dirt road, staring toward
the vanishing point where the past is rectified.
The first thing I heard this morning—three
harsh cries—was the black crow veering
past his head. History,
welcome back, it said. I watch to see
what he does next.
—12.8.2012
Copyright Credit: Eva Saulitis, "Prayer 11" from Prayer in the Wind. Copyright © 2015 by Eva Saulitis. Reprinted by permission of Eva Saulitis.
Source: Prayer in the Wind (Boreal Books, 2015)