Rosary

By Alina Sayre

---

Suffering Jesus,
hungry ribs and tin loincloth,
sculpted figure on a wooden cross
the size of my thumb.

Loop of smooth wood beads:
all the prayers I haven’t said,
a chronicle of shoulds--
but also prayers said
and not answered,
an infinity loop
of asking and denial,
stones and scorpions,
each bead a rock in a mountain
too massive to move.

And at the end again:
bronzy emaciated tin Jesus,
knobby knees and nailed hands.

Can you hear me,
suffering,
beautiful one?

Can you teach me to move the mountain
of beads?

---

Alina Sayre is the award-winning author of five books, a graduate student of theopoetics and an editor of Foreshadow. You can learn more about her work here, and you can find her book of poems Fire by Night here, where 'Rosary' was previously published. The poem has been republished here with the author's permission.

Alina's other work on Foreshadow:

• Keeping Vigil (Poetry, March 2022)
• Vocation as a Gift (Interview, March 2022)
• Sleepwalker (Poetry, April 2022)
• Highway (Poetry, May 2022)​​
• Deep Gladness: Writing as a Vocation (Non-fiction, June 2022)
• Stone Church (Poetry, August 2023)