Ashley Bristowe | CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

Pariah’s Prayer

Everything tried
and nothing
seeming to work,
what can I do
but pull
a fast one?
— con myself
that I can con
God
or judgment,
or fate,
or karma
or whatever powers
await me
— that I can avoid
whatever consequences
are lying in wait beyond
that six-foot hole
that yawns ever wider,
grave reminder
of reality:
the fact that
the truth prevails
notwithstanding
every trick
in the book,
that hook and crook
won’t disguise
a gate-crashing pariah
at the party,
that whoever preys
on weakness
hasn’t a prayer —