The Nine Ways of St. Dominic She made her prayers arrows and fired them forth from the bent bow of her heart, from the curve of her need where she nocked each shaft on sinews redly supple and listened for the fletches' sizzle in flight. She wanted to pierce heaven with the sharpened ardor of her entreaty. She had already tried prostration, flattened herself—fitted sheet face down under slow unblinking eye, the prickle of God's green grass an irritating mortification, pressing a chaotic pattern in flesh of her cheek, forearm, and exposed stomach, making her itch outside and in, the smell— earthy dirtiness, growth—reminding her of her snaky lowliness. She had wanted forgiveness, notice, and something she could not say even in cloister of her skull, certainly not in the yard with the children at play around her. She had bent before in adoration over these children, each in its turn and all together, all miracles beyond understanding. She had held each one like an open book, like an offering entrusted to her, each a wonder that grew in mystery. She had felt each inside her and feels still each so keenly that she must clasp her hands over her heart and clench her jaw. She has given herself more than once for each one, spread her arms wide in universal sign of welcome or surrender. She has made an offering of herself, pelican mother. She has stood back, her arms raised, her palms out, the model of surprise or fear or thanks, her own heart awobble on unsteady legs, on first bike with wheels tilting, turning, rolling away, and then returning, gratitude welling in her, replacing the prayer she thought without saying. Her children were her scripture, and she studied them, each finger and nail, each hair she brushed and braided, every smile and tear, each fold of flesh or whorl of ear she washed and washed again. These were the Rosary she worried and treasured, the roses on which she prayed and meditated, day and night, the joys beyond all number and prime, like starlings wheeling as one according to God's will. But now, as her children's lives turn from her in widening gyres, she presses her palms together, raises them, stretching her arms higher to lift her pleas to the right ear of heaven. She closes her eyes to the blank blueness above and holds her breath and waits.
Cecil Morris retired after 37 years of teaching high school English, and now he tries writing himself what he spent so many years teaching others to understand and (maybe) enjoy. He has had a handful of poems published in Cimarron Review, Cobalt Review, English Journal, The Ekphrastic Review, The Midwest Quarterly, Poem, and other literary magazines.
Amethyst Review 