My Hail Mary Pass - Feb 27 2024

 

My Hail Mary Pass

Feb 27 2024

I muttered something pious

closed my eyes

and hurled the ball

as hard as I could.

Up for grabs

and let it land where it may.

This seems wrong.

The pigskin is oblong

not spherical,

not a ball at all.

One “hails” a cab

instead of asking

for divine intervention.

And doesn’t the Holy Mother

have better things to do

than watch over my shenanigans?

Anyway, I'm not Catholic.

Not Christian

or even religious

for all that it matters.

Still, there is a magic to prayer,

non-believer or not.

The giving voice.

The formal cadence

and archaic thees and thous.

The invocation

of a higher power

as a last resort.

Intercepted, of course.

The prayer ends badly as well.

“Pray for us sinners

       . . . at the hour of our death”,

as if the Mother of God

can only hand-off our wishes

up the line,

and only be with us

when the clock runs out.

Still, in desperation

as in foxholes

there aren't any atheists.

And some day

my prayer will be answered

and the Hail Mary pass

will magically complete itself.

So, like Pascal, I wager on God;

just in case

someone up there is listening.