A Working Class Prayer

C. Adán Cabrera

credit: C. Adán Cabrera

for my father, who wakes up in the dark, and who through storm or errant sickness must still ferry strangers to whomever may be waiting for them on the other side. for my mother, who must don vest and name-tag to serve hungry crowds that bite with uncovered maws:

steel their uncured faults, enclose them within your walls;
plant in their garden flowers of joy instead of ashen woe.

for my grandmother, who crossed deserts with naked feet and who once challenged the moon to a shouting match. for my abuelo, who crouched in his dark hut and whose tired fingers turned leather into what gringos called souvenirs but which were to us simply gifts:

                        permit gray fingers to remain remembered forever;
                        let them unburdened find their way back to you.

for my sister, mother of three and teacher of all things pure as well as practical, our alchemist manqué: a fistful of cash becomes food for a week, even if she must sometimes go hungry. for my brother, who’s lost faith along with his job and whose stony dread sleeps cold and permanent in the pit of his being:

may they drink deeply of hope and nourish their every hunger.
grant them too safe passage and etch into their hearts your wisdom.

for my brown nephews, children of mine in all but name, who now shelter in place against a predator unseen: outside the young sun beckons, while their feverish father scrubs toilets and wipes sullied windows:

give them a world (please) washed clean
and protect them from invisibility:
for to die one must first be unseen

C. Adán Cabrera is the son of Salvadoran refugees. A 2011 Lambda Literary Fellow, he holds an MFA from the University of San Francisco and a bachelor’s degree from UCLA. Originally from Los Angeles, Carlos currently lives and works in Barcelona and is working on his second collection of short stories. @cadancabrera