Vox Populi
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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 Ortolani
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.
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“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.”
Me too.
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My “broke college kid” days were, of course, different, and yet somehow all this feels familiar. What writing magic makes this possible? And then this: “. I pray this each night because I do not know what else to do”. Thank you
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Thanks, Jennifer. I’m very fond of Al’s poems. He often seems to be speaking for me.
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What wonderful poems. Yesterday I returned from a week in the desert, where I mostly stayed offline. Watched and listened to what was going on around me (wind, quail, coyote, ravens, crickets), wrote and read. I’m so happy that these prayerful poems are among the first things I’ve read online since getting home.
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I’m looking forward to your poems from the desert, Penelope.
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What a nice thing to say, Michael. Thank you.
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I love these two poems for their elegant craft, and for the fact that they express feelings and experiences very close to my own.
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Thanks, Al for these two poems…both I can live in. I’m getting a whiff of the dead cats…soaked through and through with formalin….and thinking of a med school anatomy lab some 65 years ago, a time of dissecting cadavers. I’d better stop, or this will get gory.
And then the beautiful poem of hope that lifts me up and gives me hope.
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As a premed advisor visiting medical schools, I had way too many encounters with a particular scent. Why did students always want to tell me all about their school as we stood next to a cadaver?
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And I still remember what the young, handsome engineering student (in Duisburg, Germany) from Tehran said to me: Dost Daram
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Dost Daram means I love you. There must be a story behind this, Rose Mary…
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There is indeed 🙂 And how young we were…
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Sounds like a poem?
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What wonderful poems. Thank you Al, thank you Michael.
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Thanks, Donna.
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These are powerful poems and distinctly different from one another in style. I am heartened by the wit and confrontation with heartache, and that hope gets the last word. Happy to see two great Kansas poets two days in a row. –Robert Stewart
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Yes, Al and HC make a great team, don’t they?
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I remember being in the hospital in Tehran, IV dripping to rehydrate after the kept too long chicken while EL AL checked and rechecked before our plane carrying Prime minister Begin could take off. In the hospital, a nurse massaged the place where the IV entered my arm. She spoke only Farsi, I spoke only English, yet for some reason we seemed to carry on a conversation.
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When did this happen, Barbara?
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Just before the revolution. I had become a Bahai ( one of many attempts to find a faith) and was able to go on a pilgrimage to Israel and Iran when someone dropped out.
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“I thank all the deities
of heaven since I’ve never been able
to choose just one.” Yes, me too. I am still sitting in front of my multicultural altar, mostly Buddhist, but eclectic, shells, stones, a photo of my parents, Bolivian figures, a singing bowl. Earlier, sun lit up the crows’ tree, but now there is only soft fog, missing landscape. Here I go again. A good poem ( or two) sets me off. I am grateful for this time of fog and respite before I must return and confront the world’s evil transmitted by this dark slab I hold in my hand.
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Beautiful prose poem, Barb.
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Thank you thank you thank you, Barbara. For all you show and tell us. You confront evil with your many layers of compassion and grace. Your insights, stories, sorties into the political and the community that surrounds you. In our thoughts.
Peace to you in dark times, I am glad to know you in this maelstrom we face.
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These are very moving, especially in times as fraught as our own, but reall any time. Thanks, Mike and Al1
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Thanks, Syd. I’m so glad you are here with us. You are always so encouraging to the other poets and writers. I love your generosity.
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