After a 20th century Japanese piece at the Rubin Museum of Art
I pray with my tears, each one
splashing a bead of the rosary.
There are two kinds of beads (as if
there were only two kinds of sadness):
gray lumps speckled with pits,
like deformed robin’s eggs, are strung
with three glass spheres layered
in brown and gold—planets that swirl
their topography as the universe
shifts around them.
They are not enough to elevate
my spirit, cast out my trauma,
ornament my future. The tears alone
will have to be my salvation.
