Heartbreak Prayer; EPB 311A

Please know that I thought about it all forever—
sun-streaked, beige, bare-brick back room that became your office that
long and lonely year I yearned for you.
Scorching May sun affix itself like halo to your
Holiest of heads and hearts; eclipse of your shadow pressed
against the buckling (breaking) windows you’ll spend all summer fixing.
It’s hot? I don’t remember. No: just me—sweat-stained shirt, smoking
so many cigarettes, certainly making myself sick—trudge through
dirt-trodden bike path I don’t frequent to tell you shit you didn’t know and
don’t wanna hear. My left breast pocket, a golden chain;
Two medallions of a Catholic saint
(Francis de Sales–of Writing,
Martín de Porres–of Social Justice)
burning too brightly by my heart. The back of both inscribed
PRAY FOR US
while I
shrug-slug up that slew of stairs
to confess a love I know
you don’t return, my heart
pines a refrain that adds harmony in every hollow step:
fucking PRAY FOR US indeed.