When father prays

                                      I
                                   know it
                             I know whose sweat
                       irrigates our plastered floor 
                    like a field. Gethsemane is a place
                 I don't struggle to picture in my bed since
             Father's groaning is enough, a longing sample 
          of Jesus' night of arrest. I know how he bargains to
       dodge his cross before the cock crows. I know it. I know 
   how he borrows the jacket of Hezekiah and webs his body, like
 a spiderman, against the wall of our cabin. By heart, I know it. 
                    The refrain of his remix of Psalm 
                    3:1 "O Lord! I have so many 
                    enemies. A throng is against me."
                    I have seen a man out of himself
                    – worn-out from sobbing, flooding
                    his dear wife and me with tears
                    into the palms of Abba. I know
                    how he breaks his plea like his 
                    dried kolanut into the armpit of 
                    solitude for the night stars to remember
                    the oaths of God for Abraham &
                    his progeny. I know how he sheds 
                    his grief & swallows his pride– 
                    breaking like a weak glass before his
                    Deity– before who alone, he melts
                    like a candle. When father prays, 
                    the celestial clap for a regular archer
                    who shoots the arrow of his worries
                    at the sky, night round, until God 
                    himself pours into him a shower of yes!