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The Prayer That Leads Into Darkness

Donovan McAbee

Poems 
An empty room with no door
down a hallway without walls

The answer to a riddle
no one knows to ask

Even the mouse
can’t squeal his way through

An air of intuition led me here
walking on my hands

guided by a trick of light

Donovan McAbee is a poet, songwriter, and essayist. His work has appeared in The New York Times, TIME magazine, The Hudson Review, Poetry London, and a variety of other places. His academic monograph Charles Simic and the Poetics of Uncertainty was published in 2020. He lives in Nashville, Tennessee with his wife and their two children. His poetry collection Holy the Body is set to be released in March by Texas Review Press and was recently named one of “2026’s Most Anticipated Books” by Garden & Gun magazine.

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