Photo Prayer

by Karen  Kelsay

When cataracts form clouds across my eyes
like fog that settles on the coastal skies
and creaky knees require a wooden cane
to navigate my walk across the lane,
please help me not relinquish vanity
to illnesses or pain. Just swaddle me
in classic silk pajamas, sleek and black,
with little velvet shoes — no flannel sack
to drape around my bones, or pink housecoat
with fuzzy slippers skimming like a boat
across the kitchen floor. I’ll take a chain
of gold, Ann Taylor slacks. Let me abstain
from wearing spongy curlers that cause laughs
when children see me in old photographs.


Karen Kelsay is a two-time Pushcart Prize nominee and the author of five chapbooks. Her book, Dove on a Church Bench, will be published next year by Punkin House Press. Karen is the editor and creator of Victorian Violet, an online poetry magazine. She lives in Orange County, California, with her British husband and two cats.
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Pat Jones
Published 2 January 2011