Pouring Out

Sit with me, Lord, this night . . .
if You can bide
the stale scent of old hurts aired
in a midnight wind.

I'm ashamed to think You hear
the half-said complaints,
the boxed harmonica melodies,
the same blues tune, lamenting,
in variations, over and over . . .

There is a taint about it--
no noble sadness this--only
the rusty-hinge grating
of a door warped from its frame
and no longer able to close,
flawed beyond reclaiming.

You know all the summer swellings
and winter shrinkings,
all the relentless hoping of spring
and the fall wind that blows
these weary, pulled-about things
back and forth through nights
when sleep won't come.

In the house next door, a child fusses
over yesterday's skinned knee
gone gooey from his bath.
Ritual whispers through an open window:
clean sheets pulled back,
pillows and animals gathered in,
a mother's voice. "It's okay, honey.
It needs to breathe."