Everyday Miracles Poem by Daniel Brick

It was the kind of accident
people will later say,
'It's a miracle no one was killed.'
But that was not the word in Marsha's
mind, as she drove down an adjacent street.
She heard the screech of brakes,
the sickening crunch of metal on metal,
and, as she turned down that fateful street,
the eerie silence beneath the wail
of two car alarms. She saw not two cars
smashed together, she saw just wreckage
and as she groped for her cell phone,
her mind calmly said a prayer...
She dialed 911. A man was supporting a woman,
his right arm around her body, as they limped
to the curb and collapsed simultaneously.
The operator took Marsha's information. It was
only then she saw the teenage boy with blond hair
looking straight up into the clear sky,
as if he were only a sightseer. The boy tripped
once as he staggered over to the couple, and
the three of them huddled in a dome-like embrace.
Marsha set her cell phone down and prepared
to leave her car. She was determined to be
of service, somehow. A door creaked, and a man
laboriously lifted himself out of the other car.
Was this not the very occasion of service
presenting itself? She recalled later
he was almost bald, he was wearing a torn green
shirt, '-and he was incredibly drunk! '
The drunk collapsed onto the opposite curb.
dropped head into his hands, and sobbed.
He sobbed and wailed with such abandon,
Marsha was afraid to approach him. She went to
the huddled family of three victims. Sirens,
an ambulance, men in white, two squad cars,
two officers with pads and pens and questions -
the rest of this story is routine business,
and routine is never a fit subject for poetry,
right? I prefer to go forward to two summers
after this trauma: Marsha and her family
are renting a cabin on Clam Lake in Wisconsin.
It is early morning, before 6 am, and Marsha
is standing alone on the cabin deck, pulling
her scarlet robe around her body. The air is cold,
but the sunlight is remarkably hot on her face
and shoulders. Across the way, another woman
stands alone on the cabin deck. She waves
energetically, 'Isn't this weather miraculous? '
'It couldn't be better, ' Marsha shouts back.
The smile lodged within her breaks out on her face,
a wide, laughing smile, and it lingers, as more
sunlight pools around her. The rest of that day
is made up of vacation routines.