Aerik Francis

_Silver Prayer_

after Aracelis Girmay

This is an asking of May:
May the lines trail. May the
lines path into poems.

May the letters be let be.
May the words snail trail. May the
snail trails blaze in little

imprints. May the snails
find their ways & trail
more slick tails of path everywhere.

May I follow? May I
acknowledge knowledge & go
as the snails go: every

-where there are feet to inch,
where time trails behind quiet,
where babysteps set record,

where littles climb atop shoulders of
giants who, too, were snails of the
world, once, enamored at tracked foot’s

step & growing in luster of silver
streaked trail. Each length a prayer
answered, a limit stretched. May I

grow in this way, not size but lived
experience & drawn lines once
unpathed & unmarked. May I thank

snails for their size. Say, “You,
too, are lives large & little.” It
means we matter here & now. The snail was

here, in the poem. May I, the same, grow here.