A prayer before resting

Before bed you asked
me to read you
the Lord’s Prayer

a strange request
unsettling to me
in my exhaustion

Laying you to rest
I pray it now
remembering you –

a video flickering,
streaks barely visible
in the light

shadow beings
chasing us
back to when

we could see
it all, everything
in the dark

 

 

The poem was first published in Across The Margin, October 2014.

 

 

©Daniel von der Embse