Aimee Grunberger

I wish you didn't have to go through this. I wish you could choose your adventures rather than having them thrown in your path.

Got a canuck healer living
with my picture in his pocket
got a temple full of buddhists
blowing incense in my name
housewife psychic up in longmont
sees my future through the phoneline
someone's sister in pawtucket
threads my wish into her rosary
virgin-spotting chicana
drops glass beads into the mail

This is no time for theology

Twenty orthodox rabbis
wait to take my call in brooklyn
fax a prayer into an ancient temple wall
scrap of paper hebrew letters

Wail on
wail on in my name
wail on prime time
wail on via satellite

Handle snakes speak in tongues
entreat buddha bang gongs
candlelit sooty chapel
raise a holy howl in my name
for my name's sake
moment of silence
thirty second share off peak access air

Your little daughter
doesn't know me tell her
I'm a lovely person
tell her I'm your college roommate
or a princess in a burning tower
tell her I've got children too
she can bless me in her nightie
after grandma and the cat

- Aimee Grunberger, Language of Stones