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Milagro
By Marc Swan
for Ave
She gives me passages from Thomas Merton,
scriptures of the day from Christian Science
Monitor-poems of life, love, the uplifted
spirit. I know her intentions are good
She wants to help me turn the corner, find
the path to everlasting light. She knows
deep down I'm a skeptic. Her faith keeps
her trying to help me see things she holds
firmly as the belief that medical science can
work a cure when they find a growth of wild
tissue alongside ten stomach ulcers beside
the softly puckered flesh of her duodenum,
close to a festering rupture of her over-ripe
bladder. If the tests had been done earlier
some say, the outcome might have been
better. I'm not a doctor. I only know
what I see, smell, hear, touch with my own
two hands. I've watched grown people bow
down on bent knee, carry four by six crosses
over pot-holed roads, cross themselves over
and over in front of papier-maché statues
of brightly festooned saints-fresh rosebuds
set in small glass vials. I've seen too many
good people die, but I've never seen el milagro.
I promise when I do, I'll bring the crucifix
to my lips and kiss kiss kiss.
