This, too, is a day
that could perch delicately
in the palm of your hand,
a baby bird flown away
faster than you can photograph
the sweet touch of yellow
just under her chin—

and that’s as it should be,
as it always is—

but today you might also miss
even seeing
all the splendor grilled into a corn tortilla
with its train track burn marks
crusted and perfect,
your sister (as usual) lifting her voice up
to cut you off quickly and unlisten you along
with an idea that turns out to be
pretty good,
the prehistoric lovely buggy of a car
that lingers beside you
in the left-turn lane,
and the touch of rose scent
that stays after the foam
of the soap that you scrubbed
forty seconds, to be safe.

You can’t feel it anymore,
because they’ve made you afraid,
and tomorrow could crash
down your door any day—

and it might, too.
It might.
Something in that is true,

but it always is.
Listen: let the waves of what-if’s
drift in and out with their shipwrecks
and myths, as they do,
as we all tremble sometimes
in the midnight wind.

It’s in the in-between hours
you must take what is yours
and squeeze it hard like an orange
with both fists,
juice dribbling down your fingers,
dripping lyrics on your wrists.

This, too, is a day
you are here with the sun,
with its tumbling wonders
and dirt road bouquets.

You’re alive, you know.
You’re still lightning and lace.

You could see their sameness
in the boyish grin:

an extra twinkle and a wink
slipped inside every smile
flipped their eyes back time
and turned their faces twin.

You could hear it ripple out
around the pebble of laughter
that they tossed to start movement
in a dull swamp of room,

taste it in the flavor
of high-pitched silliness
that they laced around the edges
of every soft friendship.

I noticed it mostly
up around the shoulders:
straight-and-narrow square
even when wheelchaired in,
they never consented
to gravity’s heist,
never lost sight
of the love in their lives.

They burned galaxy bright.

It was expansive energy
that bound them in tight;
this particular strain of DNA
less about noses and height and shape,

more about morals and trying again,
and happy hellos,
and faithful-true ends.