That day I tumbled unsuspectingly into someone else’s life, someone else’s
driving lesson, shopping list, lecture, into someone else’s
hesitations, beginner’s legs at dancing lessons.
And nowhere was I lost, I walked countless orphans
to respectable parents and taught a drinking man
to trust that his glass would last,
I stormed bruised and battered women out of houses,
shuffled beggars into castles, made a cold mother
kneel in time beside a fallen child,
I was the fallen child.
I taught a footballer to believe in God like the bang
of the ball on the crossbar, a blind man to find
everything he lacked without asking,
I was the talent the painter had
to elude his light.
Only the totally natural dive
of a skinny, early morning swimmer,
in the outside pool between the trees,
came out extremely forced.
Powerless, she floated over the water while I,
losing heart, slid back, in motion again, out of her
shiver, the swimming costume
almost vanished already.