Dönme-style Prayer for Service

I believe with perfect faith in the perfect expectation that no matter where I am my iPhone will have access to the internet via Wi-Fi or at least 3G. Though I may not like to admit it aloud I believe with perfect faith that in the world in which we now live this is a perfectly reasonable assumption.

I believe with perfect faith in the perfect anger and frustration I will feel watching Safari attempt to load a website with me watching all the time, watching Waze attempt and fail to bring back driving directions to my destination—or listening as the phone call I’m attempting to make cuts in and out, making the voice of my wife mother friend plumber attempting to find a leak in my HVAC incomprehensible. I believe with perfect faith I will not handle that moment well, and that no one will.

May it be pleasing before Thee, God of infinite and uninterrupted communication, God of fiber optic transcontinental cables linking Israel with the East Coast, which will guide us in moments of interruption and helplessness. Amen.

The Dunno Elegies

I could ask you something like, Who if I cried
Out to the angelic Order in heaven
Would hear me—but then I already know
The answer: everyone who’s still got reception
Up there. Me I’ve got three bars all the time—
O’Connors off Flatbush, McMenamin’s here in Philly,
And who am I kidding—it would truly be a crime
If I attempted to claim there was really
A third. But you—you’ve always got an answer
Until the nature of my question comes to ghosts
When I open you there’s always an angelic chance
For me to call anyone on Earth, when what I want most
Is to see there’s no one on the line.