change

pray the roof stays up.
pray for rain.

i used to hang work in a gallery,
two thousand funky square feet in a hundred
year old building, second floor -
Athens, Georgia.

sometimes, if the weather was heavy
as it often was, the water
ran down the walls from upstairs
where a broken skylight
admitted pigeons at night -
streaming behind the wires that
held the frames of pictures,
wetting the floorboards.

I'd lay in bed, listening to the rain,
and pray (to the God I didn't yet believe in)
that we wouldn't be sued
for destruction of property
by some starving artist.

now i'm with the church.

I still work under a leaky roof,
petition a sky that won't cooperate,
and lay awake -
listening for rain.

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