Erika Takacs
Erika Takacs is an Episcopal priest, teacher, musician, and poet originally from Wilmington, Delaware. Her writing has been published in The Orchards Poetry Journal, Earth & Altar, The Christian Century, Braided Way, and as a part of the North Carolina Poetry Society’s Poetry in Plain Sight. Outside of her work and her family, her three great loves are the music of J.S. Bach, books, and baseball. She currently resides in North Carolina, where she and her husband serve at the pleasure of their very spoiled beagle.
A Prayer for My Enemies
Simply, that you will know a morning like this—
sunlight brushing your cheek, the birds riotous
for reasons no scientist can explain
but that sound just like joy. Someone in bed
beside you—a lover or a toddler
or a beagle, their mussy hair or sticky
fingers or thumping, happy-dream tail coaxing
some quiet corner of your heart to bloom.
That you’ll stretch, and wonder at the regular
ecstasy of it; roll over, and want
for nothing. That you will sleep and rise
without fear, no longer frantically trying
to claw fruit from the bud—as if your hands
did not already hold so much beauty.
