SCOTT CAIRNS

Further Possible Answers to Prayer

And as for Hell, your Hell is deep chagrin,

a deeply wrenching circumstance in which

the soul no longer manages to skirt

 

what’s what.  The fire?  Well, that rich searing is

My tenderness as felt by all who have

for so long worked to mute My tenderness.

 

The only demons then in play will be

the ones you’ve carried with you, the cohort you

have wed, and fed, whose offspring you have borne.

 

Acute chagrin, which the soul, so long as

she is willing—so long as she is not

absolutely dead—may one day shed.