Read Poem: Asylum Prayer, by Lauren Scharhag

Say, God is meaningless,
unless They know our pain.
Say, this is the selling point of Christ,
a god who is also a bleeder,
a laborer, a partaker of bread,
a refugee.

Say, this is my exhaustion:
searching for the godlike
in the faces of corruption,
in the places of razor wire.
Say, mothers, your milk
dries as tears. Say, children,
we are all out of lullabies.
Say, Samaritans, keep your gifts.

Say, this desert air
is the breath of God.
If you want baptism,
here is the indifferent river,
the toilet basin.

Say, this want
is an emanation of God.
Say, the Dollar Almighty
has its chosen people.
Even the haven of light
will be denied,
the all-knowing motion sensors,
the bulbs that rob the weary
of sleep, dreams, time,
those most fundamental of healers.

Say that despair is the soul-killer,
the looking away. Say, we must
be bigger…