Prayers Fermenting with Old Shoes

An old professor in a sweater vest and

Inch-thick glasses stands preaching about the

“Fabric of the universe.”

All you can think about is the scratchy red wool

Stretched across his Santa belly.

Now you’re picturing the whole vastness of space

As an old musty sweater

Stashed in the back of a dark closet—where really

These types of fashion crimes belong.

When one day the light again falls upon it,

A moth and her children have taken charge of this

Unwanted, forgotten garment

And are chewing their way straight through the dyed strings,

Splattering it with black holes.

In a fright the moths are banished,

But there’s nothing to be done about the damage.

Upon further inspection you discover a design

That your late grandmother spent a painstaking week

Creating. With the neglect and the holes,

You can’t quite remember what it was.

Was this a Christmas sweater? Yes, now you remember

The one snowflake, more intricate than the rest;

As a child you swore it had eyes and a mouth and a soul.

An hour’s search and you find it a stranger—

The moths have pulled the strings out every which way;

It looks as if the tender flake grew and grew and ate itself.

Standing there with the sweater swaddled in your hands—that same sweater

That you thanked Grandma kindly for, then all but threw away—

Remorse and guilt consume you as you picture

The wasted effort,

The implied trust—broken—

The guardian role you never played,

And all the dead North Stars.