it’s a miracle, I tell you
—Laura Kasischke, “Near Misses”
It’s a miracle, I tell you,
that I am here to make the breakfast
and spread the jelly
on the stale bagel,
a miracle for me to walk
down the icy street
in these scuffed up boots
with these scuffed up feet
and my scuffed up dreams
and my scuffed up love,
a miracle to wander through
the smear of the days,
the spill of the years,
my cells slowing down,
my candles blown out
and relit and blown out
and relit again,
yes a miracle, not just
biology, to feel it so profoundly,
this gratitude that I might stumble
and stride through the world,
a little hum finding my lips
as one foot falls again
in front of the other,
and is lifted, then falls,
and is lifted again.