Bargaining with the Universe, I Look for Loopholes
       

Some bets are made of paper, and you are standing in the rain.
And when you found a wagon wheel beneath the sod, propped it
against garden shed walls, you wished for cockles. Morning
glory twirls the spokes and this you call a bonus. A button

in the grass means you will live another allotment of years,
and the dandelion picked and placed in a bucket without losing
a seed is a confession you won't have to confess. Let the subject
be a cipher, let the cryptographer come back to life just so

she might be thanked. The moon speaks a language of wild
onions, and what is hidden is itself existence's singular song.
There's much I don't know, and I swear I'll try harder yesterday
than I did tomorrow. Silence's cheap bones roll in the dust

after a good bleaching, and the cracks of our conception howl
with acuity. Is there anything that would save you, make you
a million times larger than a continent? I also don't know
many other things, but that an ache is an event, a sandwich,

a wish between two slices. I saw how we, animals of surprise,
could shine, inhale the flowers and the wandering weather,
lead the meadow to water, and swallow every miracle we find
if only to save us from ruin, fill us with impossible wisdom.

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Copyright © 2022 Ronda Piszk Broatch All rights reserved
from The Greensboro Review
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission