Jeanine Walker

Some of What’s Here Isn’t Enough

a father finally desperate enough for prayer
hands form the familiar steeple, sweep into the up and up
knees two shallow rocks in two shallow swallows

what will be the end of the frantic murmuring

will the intangible touch the body of a sick wife
will the body rise to the touch
of the words ascending from his lips
despite the father’s half-life resolve against prayer

the world it had seemed was enough for him

one morning her body held him desirous inside her
and the next morning her body had no room
for white and red blood cells,
            platelets crowded out like sinners from a Sunday church

his knees again become intimate with dirt
with carpet, linoleum, plywood and grass
and hands as he clutches his knees to rise

what will be the end of these frantic murmurs
it must be so clear how desperate he is
and tell him isn’t desperation the genesis of mercy

Jeanine Walker is the author of The Two of Them Might Outlast Me (Groundhog Poetry Press, 2022) and has been recognized with a 2025 microgrant for Korean poetry translation from Seattle City of Literature. Her poems and translations have found homes in Poetry, Denver Quarterly, Pleiades, Poetry Northwest, Prairie Schooner, and elsewhere. Jeanine teaches poetry and publishing in Seattle.