Pray, Lord

We are near, and you can feel
The soft breath of our last prayers.
Soon we’ll latch on to your neck.

Lord, lord. All the names you made
For us to call you by us,
Your names, our flesh. Think of Paul,

One of you, lord, name to us,
From whose ghost we steal a phrase
Or two of what here we are.

How are we not you? How are
You still you, when you are so
Much what we are that makes you

What you are? Lord, we would eat
You, if we had mouths to eat,
But we fly from mouths and hands,

Your mouth, through your hands. You belch
Flies, lord, how we swarm near you.
Lord, how we’d love to bite hard.