A Prayer for Disappointment

by Farley Walker


I'm a woman who stands here with my hands clasped in a prayer for forgiveness.  It doesn't work so I search the lines on my palms, hope to find the answer there.  Give me tea leaves, give me tarot cards. I pull a blanket around my shoulders and stumble from couch to bathroom and back again.  Instead, give me an empty bed after too much to drink, tears past my cheeks, straight for the ears.  Give me mornings not even awake and already the memory of the night before: not enough water to ease a dry mouth, not enough Advil to appease a pounding head.  Give me knees clutched under the spray of the shower until time is up, when one must go to work, white liner and shadow to conceal puffy eyes and a plastered smile for luck.  
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