Sunday Morning Prayer
by Ken Meisel

If time is eternal in Heaven, I’d rather be temporary
& in your arms 

as the fire burns in the fireplace & the ice-rain falls
happenstance outside, 

covering the entire avenue in ice-white pebbles.
& if love 

is a measurement of how we’ve surrendered to mystery,
I’d rather 

be a fisherman in a bog, slogging through it
for another pearl

so that I can again offer it to you.
& if spirit is an almond orchard where the flower blossoms

are the dropped white lace
of the seven angels of the apocalypse leaving

their map,
I’d rather be lost in all that, than to be at another church, 

hearing again why it is we’ve sinned
by laying down together

on a bed of white almond blossoms, before marriage.
& if rapture is just spirit 

stretching itself in yoga ritual so as to feel itself alive
in a physical body,

I’d rather lay here in it,
thanking the sweet aromatic air 

for all my faithful fingers holding precisely & clearly
all your writhing incredible life 

inside them.
& if you are all I have to love today, 

you, double movement 
of consent, you, floral life of delight,

then I’ll take that roadway you offer, 
to God.

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Ken Meisel is a poet and psychotherapist, a 2012 Kresge Arts Literary Fellow, a Pushcart Prize nominee and the author of eight books of poetry. His most recent books are: Our Common Souls: New & Selected Poems of Detroit (Blue Horse Press: 2020) and Mortal Lullabies (FutureCycle Press: 2018). Meisel has recent work in Concho River Review, I-70 Review, San Pedro River Review, The Wayfarer and Rabid Oak.