I pray like pink sticky note memos
and they answer with a sunset--
dropped like an egg yolk.

When I was younger and 
I used to pray on my knees before
bed-- back when I thought
God spoke English and could
write back to me on the 
green chalk board of my forehead.
I used to be able to write monologues 
to God-- I would lay out my fore arms
like notebook pages
and carve "Hail Mother,
Hail Mary, Hail doves
and orange peels and the smell
of January snow day mornings 
that make living rooms into chapels.
Dear God I said this morning
I'm sorry I haven't been to church
it's been at least three weeks 
since I last said anything to you
besides apologies 
between tied shoe laces
and washed cereal bowls. I don't think of
myself as a sinner-- I don't think
of anyone as a sinner actually--
maybe I'm  a windup bird
or a jewelry box that
stopped holding pearls and I'm sorry
that I mostly just place
sticky notes on the clouds
and under the maple
tree leaves these
days-- They usually
happen when I remember to say
"thank you for giving me
hands and eyelids and
a nose that resembles a Lima bean."
"thank you for making bridges of
the arches of my heels and 
thank you for the steam off
the coffee mug in the morning
when summer is hot enough
to brew chai tea."
I used to think God didn't respond.
I used to think he listened
and nodded and picked up another
piece of notebook paper
torn from the spiral bound wrists
of thirteen-year-olds--
but he answered me last night
as he does every night
in the elegant cheek bones of a sunset
or the lullaby of
mist after a thunderstorm
or the drifting of snow
across the graveyard of
a soybean field--
laughing like the hot days
in autumn.