by A.J. Prufrock

How many years and hours and days
Will it take to unlearn all my protesting ways
And know first instant, that You reveal to heal.

Will I ever quit my cowering and simply stand
Upright in courageous trust beneath your hand
While You, all wise and kind and always just
Spread thick your fragrant balm
Infusing, curing, filling every wrong.

For You are not a cold clinician 
Diagnosing and prescribing from afar
But lover lying with me in my agony
Fingers tracing every weary scar.

A.J. Prufrock—middle-aged and greying—lives on thirteen tucked-away acres with one dog, two cats, seven chickens, and a single guinea hen. The guinea hen is single by his own choosing. Prufrock is not. For more on Prufrock’s full-length novels, see ajprufrock.com

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