Other Wonders
In museums, I’d admired triptychs of Mary and her child
but found nothing familiar until I had children of my own.
Then I saw the shape her arm made holding the baby.
Erickson treated a woman for years
without progress until, watching his daughter reach
for her glass, he saw how her arm curved around
her new breasts and understood his patient had been a man.
Driving home one night, I saw the signs for my exit
and realized I could go on into the pine-pinned landscape,
the empty upper peninsula, through Canada; beyond.
There was a beauty to the car, the routes lit in all directions,
like the magnetic rails the starlings see and follow
and the mute swans whose wings ring the air
with metallic tones. There are other wonders:
Bamboo blooms, illogically, everywhere at once
and fresh water can be found in the middle of the sea.
If you can read the currents, you can lower your bucket and drink.
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