Miracles Never Cease

I shouldn't be here.
I drank myself into
withdrawal seizures
when I tried to stop.
I pissed
away years
like they were nickels
on a barroom floor.

Friends' ashes
are scattered across
Iowa City and Des Moines.
Some of them froze.
Some fell on ice
and didn't get up.
Some overdosed
on smack.
Some drank themselves into
cirrhosis
and wet brain.
February in Iowa
doesn't care if you're drunk.
The sidewalk
is still hard.
The cold still gets inside you.
The body still
has to answer
for everything you did to it.
Little Phil met his end
on a park bench
next to the library.

I shouldn't be here,
but here I am
the next morning
and a lifetime later.
Coffee.
Medicine.
Vitamins.
I stretch my back
until it stops complaining
long enough for me
to stand up.
I feed the cats.
Open the shades.
Look out at the street.

There's an appointment today.
They're going to ultrasound
the nodule
on my thyroid.
Apparently
the miracle comes
with appointments.
It comes with pills
and coffee
and an aching back.
It comes with cats
waiting for breakfast
and a blank page
sitting on the desk.

No epiphany.
No trumpets.
No voice from heaven
telling me
what it all means.
Just another morning
I wasn't supposed to have.

So I sit down
and write about
the miracles
that smell like peaches
and the autumn wind
and a cat box
that needs changed.