Prayer Song

Jane’s doctor told her to create new routines. She decides she will begin cooking again, laces her boots, zips her coat, winds her scarf, takes the stone steps out of her apartment, slow-like. A seagull flies against the beating snow; the water follows us everywhere. The grocer’s automatic doors zwoop open and she stands in front of the broccoli not knowing how she got here. (Dreaming has lost its positive connotation.) Jane holds a whole chicken in her outstretched hands and cries. It is so heavy, and she has never before realized that so many people walking around her are dying. Every one, Jane knows, is feeling this way, and they have just learned through practice not to cry at poultry in public. Jane reminds herself that even the Bible ends.