Saying Grace

—on a poem by Rodney Jones: The Kitchen Gods

we pray in dark & light
not either/or, we pray in shade
as sparks shoot through limbs and leaves
in our personal universe
of ham-handed articulation
we hedge our bets sure as bookies do theirs
we dice in the dark for a glow
at the lucky outcomes of rolling bones,
and to confirm we pray to a shade
or to Jesus who did it alone,
we consider the odds in parables,
we live in them asking—
but our prayer is short and weak
tossed off without care:

the sweeter the pie we see
before us there
the shorter our prayer

Jim Culleny
1/26/2021