it’s not in Minneapolis. It’s not in front of a sell-out crowd
on Prince’s famous checkerboard floor, but the facts don’t
matter now. What matters is that tomorrow, I’ll count every
red-wing blackbird in the state of Wisconsin, each flash

of wing a blessing: The restless heart, the Promised Land.
And I am two months newly broken in the front row begging
you, unfairly, to read my mind: telepathic, unspoken
prayers. I am here tonight in front of these speakers with magic 

soaking my spine and I am ready to be handed something holy
as a guitar solo ripped from the hands of every boy called a prodigy.
I open my mouth and let the sticky faith leak out into puddles
on the floor. I open my mouth and let you place the wafer

of a song on my tongue. And I don’t think it’s a sin to call this feeling
church, when the electric wail reaches inside of your chest
and leaves an open hand behind instead of a fist. Friends,
I may have come with a heart in knots but I don’t leave

that way, and what I mean is I have seen the face
of god flicker over us and leave us hungry for more grace.