held in the outstretched hands of plaster saints

There is a kind of grace
in survival, in mornings
after, my mother's white Lincoln stopped spinning
in the intersection
the wheels on my Father's old Buick gripping road
again after rain
the averted fall from a willow over rusty metal,the skinned knee
the nail driven through the foot sure enough, but missing
any nerves or veins
the serial miracles of breath

it is morning, she is sleeping
Hank the dog is nosing through the wet grass
of the parkway
the expectancy of monday's six am
is still silent and waiting

and there is joy.

there is joy in monday morning
a tumble of laundry, half a cup of cheap coffee
and fluorescent light,
ratcheting up the first climb
of a wooden coaster of duty and day
joy in bandaged hands and traffic

joy in these five dreams in a silent house
put behind you like a good wind, like
the sun at your back, like everything
worth defending, like
the steering wheel in your chest
and someone's azaleas utterly ruined
cold milk and loose change
rattling in the backseat
a single shoe on the side of a highway
waking up alive, again