For centuries, human beings have prayed to divinities, or “deit[ies]” (Line 10). A prayer can be a meditation on life, an expression of gratitude, or supplication to a god or other object of worship. Gioia’s poem captures all these ideas. The first stanza contains a meditation on the passage of time, and the speaker addresses the nature of fate when they describe the Divine as the “choreographer / of exits and entrances” (Lines 7-8). The second stanza expresses the speaker’s gratitude for what is beautiful in the world. When the speaker requests aid from the Divine—asking it to “watch over” (Line 14) their deceased child with the sincere hope that that entity will protect “him” (Line 14)—they compare it to the natural way a “mountain” (Line 15) or a “harsh falcon” (Line 16) protects what is precious. This ties back to the ideas of gratitude expressed earlier in the poem. As a Catholic, Gioia uses the title “Prayer” to help express the multiplicity of the speaker’s experience with the Divine.

In “Prayer,” Death—or the Divine—is described as a “blade of lightning / harvesting the sky” (Lines 5-6). This suggests a sickle shape made by the bolt in the sky, which would be physically beautiful.