Prayer
May the nights bring you feathers
and sun-bright sheets, may the hours
we rocked you still lull you
to sleep, may they offer relief,
may all your nights open with warm milk
and lavender, release you from grief
may they hold tired feet, may your forehead
remember the warmth of my cheek,
may all your nights close in a glimmer
of birds, may your belly keep its heat.
Rachel Bower is an award-winning writer based in Sheffield. She is the author of a poetry pamphlet, Moon Milk (Valley Press), and a non-fiction book on literary letters (Palgrave Macmillan). Her debut collection, These Mothers of Gods, is out with Fly on the Wall Press in 2021. Rachel’s poetry and short fiction has been widely published, including in The London Magazine, The White Review, Magma, Stand and New Welsh Reader. She won The London Magazine Short Story Prize 2019/20 and the W&A Short Story Competition 2020. She is an Associate Lecturer in Creative Writing at the University of Leeds and is currently editing an anthology with Simon Armitage (Faber & Faber).