GRACE

 (C) 2003 

I am already off-kilter:

the divorce, my room-mate and best friend getting married

and asking me to move out only two months after I’ve moved in;

the ludicrous dates, the last of which ended in assault;

the work-load and school-load, the mounting dental work

and accumulating debt. I think I’ve had enough

and then today my unemployed, brooding, eighteen-year-old

tells me she is pregnant.

This is not the straw that will break me.

A walk down any downtown Seattle street or through

the Pike Market Park smelling of piss and ripple reminds me 

that bottom is a long way off.

Is that where I’m headed – I wonder, still too numb to surface.

I stop to give spare change to a homeless man

who smells like one beer too many. He asks how I’m doing

and I say my day’s been pretty crappy before I even realize

that I’ve got it world’s better than he does.

He can respond anyway he’d like now and I’d accept it.

He could tell me to fuck-off or grow-up

but he is generous enough to deliver a personal sermon.

He slaps me in the chest near my shoulder, says

to remember that god created us—made us to be gods.

I’m not believing this line, because we are all already

sorry examples of humankind, let alone omnipotent enough

to evoke, jesus, whatever it is gods evoke:

wrath, compassion, peace or war.

He smacks my other shoulder, pokes his message home

just in case my ears ain’t hearing. You got to focus

on the good, he says. You got to insist they respect you.

He pushes me sideways a good six inches in example;

got to hold your own space, he says, cause they

gonna take, take, take. 

Hell, my “they” is me.

I’m the last one to respect myself, feel so much

like a broken-wing bird, or a muzzled dog, de-clawed

and worthless. I can’t even think enough to throw

another blanket on the bed when I’m cold or to buy groceries

and feed myself something near balanced. I probably shouldn’t, 

but I give him $20-bucks instead of 50-cents

knowing it ain’t as much as he gave me:

some eye contact, some encouragement,

some of god’s strange grace.