The music swells and words spill out,
gratitude and grief dripping from their chins,
mouths moving in unison and yet
dozens of silent conversations.
You never know what it took for
each person’s hands
to arrive over their heads.
Some are lifted with ease
as if answered prayers
are pulling strings.
Some who walked in carrying weight
set it down beneath their chairs
and open their calloused palms to the sky.
One sits beyond the glass doors
on the curb outside,
hands full, cradling a contorted face,
thirsting in a wasteland
but feeling the drumbeat
under the dry earth like a steady stream.
The final verse is sung.
the chorus takes their seats
the current continues underneath.
Micaela Meyer is a poet from Modesto, California whose work unfolds in conversation with God and the writers of Scripture. Many of her poems begin in the Notes app while parked in shopping center lots after closing time.
Agape Review 