may be like yours, or not.
A rosewood rosary slithers
through fingers that pause to feel
the carved rosette at each Our Father bead.
But what prayers come from 
my altered mouth? Something like:
Bring that friend some peace.
Take my anger away. 
In the old schoolhouse 
where I live, a single stained glass
window filters low December sun
to greenish gray. When I was small,
I would hunch over a church pew
to peer sideways along the facets
of the gem in my gum-ball ring,
tilting stained-glass sunlight,
amber and lilac and spinning pinks,
to sacralize the homily and creed,
take me up and out, soaring—
“I believe in”—not that. Something
almighty but hard to find, like
justice for this sad world.