Near-misses
The truck that swerved to miss the stroller in which I slept.
My mother turning from the laundry basket just in time to see me open
the second-story window to call to the cat.
In the car, on ice, something spinning and made of history snatched me
back from the guardrail and set me down later between two gentle trees.
And that time I thought to look both ways on the one-way street.
And when the doorbell rang, the time I didn't answer, and just before
I slipped
one night into a drunken dream
I remembered to blow out the candle on the table beside me.
It's a miracle, I tell you, this woman scanning the cans on the grocery
store shelf. Hidden in the inner workings of a mysterious
clock are her many
deaths. And yet
the whole world is piled up before her on a banquet table again today.
The timer, broken. The sunset
smeared across the horizon in the girlish cursive of the ocean.
Her body, proof. The way
it moves a little slower every day. And
the cells, ticking away.
A crow in a grave pecking steadily at a sweater.
The last hour waiting patiently on a tray for her in the future.
The spoon slipping quietly into the soup.