Meg Hurtado

IT’S A WONDERFUL LIFE

Salvation falls on deaf ears only, darling—

                                            “If either of you sees a stranger

                                             around here, it’s me.”

They can’t help dancing the chasm

 and when water wins, dance on,

                            eyes clenched, stinging, gasping,

                            gauzy dress & necktie drenched—

            “Just remember that this isn’t

                                as black as it appears,”  he says,

                                                              as sirens arrive.

On his way upstairs he gets caught on

                                                 something he’s failed to fix,

ambles straight to the kid sick in bed,

         set to prove sometimes

                         miraculous recovery means

pretending what’s lost

               is lost forever—

*

Truly, though, he failed; the people he saved

betrayed him. He suffered, was a fool, 

got trapped in love like a hummingbird in amber,

all haunted halls and broken records and 

a voice repeating, “the chance of a lifetime!”

                          & then he says, NEVER,

                         because he must;

                         she cries, “No!”,

                         he melts, and then

                         it’s names, names, names.

*

First man: “Isn’t there any romance in you?

Second man: “There was, but I got rid of it.”

*

The angel has been in the picture

                   from the very beginning but only now enters the life,

provides the nightmare

                  of not having been there for any of it,

                 of history stripped to its imprint,

And when the bones he used to hold

                                              don’t know him,

when “What else are you?”

                    seems as good a prayer as any,

                  not, “I want to live” but “I want to live again”,

unlatches totems known,

       a little blood at the corner,

                           remainders of rose,

              some damage done,

                           one will whittling a world wherein

this kind of thing can happen

                      no matter what the rich believe,

&Love lines every threshold

                  if you’ll let it & the newborn king

is just a basket full of second chances,

                   here to show money means nothing.

Old friends, we brought bread and salt.

There’s no reason to wait.

First we’ll save life as we know it,

then sing.