Like a Prayer
From our UK edition
The heat in the day-room can put you to sleep there’s a man reciting the days of the week like a prayer he keeps his coat on, but he’s going nowhere the place is a circus of contradictions nurses anonymous as nuns push trays of benedictions in all colours and shapes; on the tongue they taste vaguely of a memory of Christ hung for our sins on a mates rates tree you count the minutes until the redemptive delivery kicks in; the bed’s unmade, it reeks of you the unrisen penis and the unrepentant view of a wall dulled in industrial blue paint you’d want the submissiveness of a consumptive saint to take it in your stride, not to feel the nails go in, the flogged skin crack and peel washing your face in vinegar from the tap, scrying unholy metaphor in the mirror, s.