My prayer-cupped hands

My prayer-cupped hands

Muslim men in the East, I'm told,
smoke biddies channeled

through cupped hands --
Mohammed having forbid tobacco

to ever touch their lips.
This is the kind of love song

with which I nightly serenade my Beloved,
exploring the convoluted ways

I might obey my Lord
and savor the smoke at the same time.

It is the illusion of our maneuverability
that keeps paradise just out of grasp.

Until I become that fabled ant
beneath the elephant's foot,

my cleverness and desire will ever reach out
for the birds in the bush and let loose

the one captured and singing
in my prayer-cupped hands.

O child of God, obey your Beloved and refrain
from the lies you tell yourself daily.