Yahweh, my heritage, my cup, you, and you only, hold my lot secure...I bless Yahweh, who is my counsellor and in the night my inmost self instructs me, I keep Yahweh before me always.

(Psalm 16:5-7)

Dial-a-Prayer

it appears

is the most popular form

of recorded phone message

across the nation,

after the time

and weather.

An astonishing statistic

that seems

to be attesting to

a nostalgia for God

that some people

inexplicably

are too ashamed

to own up to

except in private,

on the telephone,

with a taped prayer.