Wyoming Prayer
Evening settles gold
over the prairie.
Tall grasses
lean into the wind.
A blue heron lifts
from the riverbank,
following a line
only it can see.
As a teenager, I prayed
for the Holy Ghost
to set my tongue aflame,
listening
as others sang in languages
I couldn’t understand.
I wanted to belong.
Now I hear coyotes
calling through the dusk,
one voice,
then another answering.
I don’t know
what they’re saying.
Only that something
keeps calling,
and something
keeps answering.
Sam Aureli is an Italian-born poet living in the Boston area. A first-generation college graduate, he spent decades working with concrete, steel, and the built environment before turning to poetry as a way of exploring memory, inheritance, and the complicated legacies we carry. He is the author of On the Edge of Knowing (Kelsay Books, 2026). His chapbook, That’s Not My Shadow, won the 2026 Poetry Box Chapbook Prize and is forthcoming in 2027. His poems have appeared in The Berlin Review, Chestnut Review, The Bournemouth Journal, and other literary journals.
