Hymn for what he named

Melina Papadopoulos

He prayed to the sky he couldn’t see 
from under the chassis of his pickup,
asking God to forgive the rust.

I stood close and helped by having 
his hands, only smaller
to steady a flashlight,
to reach into a tight darkness
soft with cobwebs.

In the garage’s rafters, a sparrow sang.

O work boots that track in thunder and paint
O tools with jagged teeth, rust maws
O oil-stained hands signing the cross

He reminded me that God 
tasked the naming of beasts to mortal men.
I think of falcon, the word a blade,
called for what it tears into and devours;
snake, the belly-bound wanderer;

I never heard him call me daughter, 
though he claimed 
on the day I was born, 
every rose bush bloomed
and he spoke 

my name for the first time.

He did not choose my name
but said it as though he had. 
His voice carried it 
like a wind 
that drives songbirds forward.

Once, he buried doves
in our front yard.
He placed them 
in an empty coffee can, 
talons toward the sky.

O white shirt stained with sweat and prayer
O Bible grease-logged on his workbench
O icons washed in wavering headlights

Some nights, we’d stand in the driveway
and let the moon 
work silver through us
as we undid a hitch knot of stars.

Mid-unravel, he spoke

of idle engines and the Lord,
quoted Scripture between deep coughs
and offered me the same blessing
whispered to a spent dove

and I felt the weight of daughter,
like he handed me a tool 
I struggled to wield
but he trusted me to hold.

Now when I see a full moon, 
its wrench-gleam, 
I want it to belong to him.

For him to store it in a garage 
warm with sparrow song 
and exhaust pipes,
those low-voiced choirboys. 

Melina Papadopoulos is an editor from Ohio. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Rattle, Plume, Lake Effect, and The Florida Review Online, among others.