Al Ortolani: Prayer Boat

A Dolly for Cats

We met on the Physical Plant truck,
hauling campus furniture, and departmental
mail, learning to jump the two wheeler
up and down stairs. I called it

a dolly. You asked, a girl’s toy?
You taught me a little Farsi. I
explained American slang.
What’s up was my favorite, or dick

for penis, dick for Nixon. I thought
it uncomplicated. But you were apolitical,
preferred Steve McQueen’s Bullit.
Last Saturday, the U.S. bombed Iran.

I thought of you singing television
commercials, the jingle for
Amour Hot Dogs your favorite
language study. Words for everything.

I came to your dump of an apartment
the morning my daughter was born.
I slipped through the hole in your wall
where the air conditioner once set.

It was a joke we shared about
open borders and lazy landlords.
I handed you a cheap cigar, a tradition.
You brought your camera to the

hospital, and took the first shots of my
daughter in her plastic crib. You were
awed by her large eyes, her miniature
fingers that you said might save

the world. I have one picture
of the two of us from the Kanza,
standing in the rain, unloading
dead cats for dissection, laughing

at the irony of broke college kids,
a Who’s Who of sorts,
two wheeling cats for pre-med students,
heart and brain and jellied eyes.

~~~

Prayer Boat

Each night I say a prayer of thanks
to some higher power, a thanks for
the chance to be alive as a thinking
being, for the family and friends
that surround me, for a good dog,
for decent health and plenty to eat,
a roof, a blanket. I thank all the deities
of heaven since I’ve never been able
to choose just one. I pray for healing
for those who suffer mentally and
physically, for those who have lost
a loved one, for those who are
bereft and homeless. I pray for some
eternal life after death where we are
joined in whatever river, lake, or ocean
we become, and that the suffering of
all sentient beings, great and small,
will cease. I pray this each night
because I do not know what else
to do, my temporary sail filled,
ballooned with living, this boat fragile
and afloat with heartache and hope.

~~~~~

Copyright 2026 Al Ortoloni

Al Ortolani is a contributing editor to the Chiron Review. His poems have appeared in Rattle,
One Art, and the Pithead Chapel. New York Quarterly Books plans to release his most recent
poetry collection, American Watercolor, in early 2027.