PRAYERS

For the first time in years St. Jerome
Hauled out his inks and quills
And hand-lettered some pages;
His lion posted them on streetlights.
They advised the world that the saint
Would no longer answer prayers
Would not, in fact, even listen
To anything sounding like a prayer.
Some, though, live in great fear
That their prayers might be answered;
When Jerome next woke, on his grating
On the shadowed side of Seventh Avenue,
He was under a passion of prayers
Who'd crawled near him in the night,
Trusting he would ignore them.