Lunch Hour (Letter on Back of Diner Napkin)

Dear                ,

the day you & those gaudy elephant mugs
bubble-wrapped & in boxes packed
split from the city like an atom
before its terrible BANG!           i decided
no more sad poems                    for inspiration
i am looking elsewhere but all the theaters
& dance halls are bleeding losses
& the only bandaids left on shelves are
shuttered doors           even the diner where you medicated
hangovers with sour coffee & egg packed between rye
is out of meatloaf & emptier
than church on Super Bowl Sunday
the cows                         commentators say
have unionized!              it is april & still snowing
of ice there are mountains in the city for which no one
has the gear to climb                  every morning forecast
is a weatherman wondering how long we’ll be under-
water once it all melts
i petitioned the aldermen for the community project
of building an ark                   they said god retired
from the miracle industry once man developed
the technology for skepticism
i am working harder to remember
strangers’ faces           but when i set pencil to sketchbook
there are only pigeons                         again
i am hoping this poem is different
the closest i’ve been to a miracle was today
seeing a boy after crumpling under a truck
he rose unmarked
a woman & her fruit cart creaked past
the man stumbled out the truck as though just learning
of gravity        ran back to the scene where
emergency services arrived                traffic backed up into
an orchestra for miles             in the intersection
the boy stood there looking
around at the city             as if it were a new tooth
grown in place of one      punched out from another life’s mouth