Adam Ai
I Wonder How You Pray
A woman speaking tongues leaps naked in front of a car on the 405.
No real words. The freeway so black it’s red. Answer to a riddle.
It runs, a river – Los Angeles in psalms, white-sky, splitting palms.
Hard breath to cuffed-up silence, like church. Spatty, dust riffle.
Echo dies in the stalled corridor. Horns flat. Empty cups of worship.
Chalices, red as words Jesus said in my childhood Bible. Remember.
The word pours from her chest like window stain in lightning, flesh.
Gurgled. Rhymes for anything dying the same. Serial oddness.
Fire but I’m not afraid. River of purpose. Anyone can be everyone.
I mean all rivers meet somewhere. Cop lights spin sun and moon.
Facing Sunset, near sunset. The universe is rhyme. The universe
is in love with itself. Speaks poem and flower everywhere, even here.
A million unmoving cars suck low the soft asphalt, like quicksand.
Beaches are closed. Was going alone. Believe me I never saw her.
I guess I've seen enough blood. Not looking now but I smell it.
High tide, low tide. Los Angeles pours into the shore, the end.
Manifest Destiny even dead observe. End of the world, and cops
are helpless, sirens for show. Where can they go? I forget to pray.
The sun dying. Sky pinks, mangoes. I hear a radio – the news is war.
I cough something broken. How would an ambulance get here?
All of us pray we make it home. Yet somehow we all pray different.
The radio says something else will have to save us from ourselves.
I get out of the car, press my face to the pavement. Northbound.
What's black even when it's red. A driver in a mirror mask watches.
I watch myself in their eyes. I keep wiping mine – I’m bloody-wet.
Everyone throbs, the city burns in blood. I swallow it hard. It is odd
I don't recognize my own reflection. As it runs, a river.
No real words. The freeway so black it’s red. Answer to a riddle.
It runs, a river – Los Angeles in psalms, white-sky, splitting palms.
Hard breath to cuffed-up silence, like church. Spatty, dust riffle.
Echo dies in the stalled corridor. Horns flat. Empty cups of worship.
Chalices, red as words Jesus said in my childhood Bible. Remember.
The word pours from her chest like window stain in lightning, flesh.
Gurgled. Rhymes for anything dying the same. Serial oddness.
Fire but I’m not afraid. River of purpose. Anyone can be everyone.
I mean all rivers meet somewhere. Cop lights spin sun and moon.
Facing Sunset, near sunset. The universe is rhyme. The universe
is in love with itself. Speaks poem and flower everywhere, even here.
A million unmoving cars suck low the soft asphalt, like quicksand.
Beaches are closed. Was going alone. Believe me I never saw her.
I guess I've seen enough blood. Not looking now but I smell it.
High tide, low tide. Los Angeles pours into the shore, the end.
Manifest Destiny even dead observe. End of the world, and cops
are helpless, sirens for show. Where can they go? I forget to pray.
The sun dying. Sky pinks, mangoes. I hear a radio – the news is war.
I cough something broken. How would an ambulance get here?
All of us pray we make it home. Yet somehow we all pray different.
The radio says something else will have to save us from ourselves.
I get out of the car, press my face to the pavement. Northbound.
What's black even when it's red. A driver in a mirror mask watches.
I watch myself in their eyes. I keep wiping mine – I’m bloody-wet.
Everyone throbs, the city burns in blood. I swallow it hard. It is odd
I don't recognize my own reflection. As it runs, a river.
Biography
Adam Ai is a poet from Los Angeles. His poems can be found in many print and online publications. Connect @adamaipoems or a Ouija Board for more. Hobbies include chasing a Ghost around the Veteran’s Hospital and learning how to love.
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