Missa Brevis
by Kimberly Johnson
If I prayed harder. If I prayed
in Latin, in its syntax a rosary chain
of convolutions. If I learned
all the old vocabularies
of supplication. If strove in koine
simplicity, if surpliced
my pleas in the psalmist’s supple play.
If I prayed harder. Prayed better.
If I learned all the holy, ancient
tongues of desperation.
If I learned new ones.
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This poem just never made it into any of my books. I wrote it in about 2006, when I was researching the circulation of scriptural texts before the period of formal canonization and noting the recurrence of certain figures of speech across language traditions. I like that this poem never reaches a conclusion about what might happen if it finds success, that it instead finds itself primarily focusing on the medium of the effort itself.
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KIMBERLY JOHNSON is a poet, translator, and literary critic. Her work has appeared widely in publications including The New Yorker, Slate, The Iowa Review, PMLA, and Modern Philology. Recipient of grants and fellowships from the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Utah Arts Council, and the Mellon Foundation, Johnson holds an M.A. from the Johns Hopkins Writing Seminars, an M.F.A. from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, and a Ph.D. in Renaissance Literature from the University of California at Berkeley. Kimberly Johnson lives in Salt Lake City, Utah. kimberly-johnson.com