I have discarded the gods
like leftover tuna sandwiches
stacks of them stuffed in the recycling
including Odin, Shiva, Baal, Sango and Amaterasu

bitter ends of unanswered prayers
to pastel angels, scraps of saints
and multi-armed goddesses
all bling and blang

no way to bargain with refractory gods
no way to seduce them with hymns and chants
dharanis and tallits and offerings of ghee
hours spent on arthritic knees

under overrated stars
muttering useless nostrums
my list of needs multiplying like dandelions
in my lamentable lawn

my granddaughter dances past
her sequined skirt all rinsed and silver
no thoughts in her nine-year-old head
of not enough

I didn’t realize that to pray
to really pray, shaken and renewed
one must want nothing

Claire Scott is an award-winning poet who has received multiple Pushcart Prize nominations. Her work has appeared in the Atlanta Review, Bellevue Literary Review, New Ohio Review and Healing Muse among others. Claire is the author of Waiting to be Called and Until I Couldn’t. She is the coauthor of Unfolding in Light: A Sisters’ Journey in Photography and Poetry.