Muffled Prayers

I strike a match in the dark and light my ven ami candle. I write my wish on paper—bring me him, bring me him, just him—and burn it. I hold his necklace above the flame before coiling it around the base of the candle. I stand, drifting in the shadows.

TV sounds float up in from the cat woman’s apartment, rising through the floors like muffled prayers.

Farnoosh Seifoddini

Recipient of the Ann Fields Prize in poetry in 2003, Farnoosh Seifoddini received an MA in English from San Francisco State University and is currently working on the MFA. Ms. Seifoddini has poetry forthcoming in the Spring 2004 issue of the North American Review. Her work can also be found in Perspective, Scribbler, Iranian.com, KineticTravel.net, and My America, a Blue Barnhouse Books publication.