Not Everything Is Terrible, Poetry Edition

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Text:

If You Were Looking for a Sign, This Is It

Yesterday was hard. The day before yesterday, hard, too.

Somehow, something about today has made it soft. Not the unrelenting

blankness of the December sky. Not the pain in my teeth, or my hands, or my aching heart.

Not the electric bill. Not the contagion. But the messages from grocers, snow-shovelers,

thanking me for supporting them. Them, who keep my body and home

when I can’t push a shopping cart or stand up in the shower. And

the pileated woodpecker glimpsed

—!

through the window of the dentist’s office. The hygienist

turning to follow my fingers into the shadowy pines. The rich red

brushstroke of the long bird’s long crest. The bright, matching threads

of my blood—right quantity, for once, and right reason—gliding

down the little white drain. The dentist reminiscing

about the owl he saw once. The spindly green

overpass graffiti urging us all

to K E E P G O I N.

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Photo by me.