LITURGY FOR A THURSDAY Let us name the hours. For the hour of leaving, we give thanks. For the fifteen minutes between house and town, for the seatbelt click, the indicator's patient tick, for the self that forms in transit— neither father nor husband nor worker but briefly, only, a body in motion— we give thanks. For the hands of the stylist, we give thanks. For the tilt of the head backward into warm water. For the permission to close the eyes. For the strange intimacy of being tended to by someone who does not need you. For the questions without answers, we give thanks. What's a big? What's a big, Daddy? Where does God stop? Let us name the tasks undone. Stephen. Sterling. Troy. Let them wait like clean white stones on a windowsill. Let them mean nothing until Monday. For the return, we give thanks. For the door that opens. For the body that runs toward. For the word that is our name repeated until it loses all meaning and becomes instead pure sound, pure want, pure arrival. This is the feast of the ordinary Thursday. This is the bread of the eleven small hours. This is the wine of having been missed. Let us go now. The day is asking nothing else of us.