Improvisation Prayer

By Emmett Coleman

baptised tonight in cooling air 

walking (running jumping dropping embracing stillness) with us and 

me and this drawling honey music. think i remembered how to have a body think 

in the morning i will forget again but no matter 

(we’re having fun. christ died on the cross. do you think he was having fun?)

think if god had snuck in real quiet nobody would have even noticed

    think if i had fallen down somebody would have helped me up.

remember the vaseline night when i 

just nine                                                           woke up with a bee under my pillow?

(jack?) (jack!) 

its small soft shape the way i was not scared of the 

sting its legs like the spokes of a watch-cog. 

its fizzy groan. when it flickered out of my palm i was left 

with my arm up waiting for (you’re boring) god i thought

or waking but there it is (you’re boring) all those years later 

the warm beck of a friend. we are all walking the soft pretzels of our anatomies.      amen.