Dedicated to Gioia’s deceased son, “Prayer” is about the poet’s deep parental love, but—as the poet himself has suggested in interviews—the emotions portrayed have a potentially universal quality that may speak to any caregiver.

The poem creates an intermingled irony and pathos in its portrayal of the caregiver—the speaker—as feeling so helpless. Caregivers are figures of power, yet in suffering this loss, the speaker appears almost as small and helpless as the child they’re grieving. They acknowledge that the “choreographer / of entrances and exits” (Lines 7-8) is all-powerful and that they cannot change its fateful decisions, and it is revealed that the “him” (Line 14) at the end of the poem has already met Death, the “deity or thief” (Line 10). In the comparison of “him” (Line 14) to a “flightless” (Line 16) bird, the age of the deceased is implied, even if the reader is unaware of the poem’s autobiographical context. The speaker grieves for the loss, knowing that they are helpless “until” (Line 14) their own passing; they can only “pray” (Line 14) to the ruler of the afterlife to “watch over” (Line 14) their deceased loved one. The speaker asks the “keeper” (Line 7) to serve as a surrogate caregiver, to secure the child as the “falcon [would] its flightless young” (Line 16).