I’ve been held up
in traffic, like everyone, window down,
exhaust and summer air wrinkling
above I-94, crawling toward the Loop
by thrift stores anywhere along the way, she
inside hunting cast-off cast iron, I
at rest in a parking-lot novel
because of a worn-out hip joint, its new
titanium step-twin taking two
years to find the other’s stride
in love and loss, her breast cancer, my
tears, her pale face vulnerable amid
surgeons, percentages, fear
like the feel of a gun barrel back of my skull,
one long-ago college night, masked
men demanding money, drugs—all
of which, this warming March morning,
makes each step along this sunlit side-
walk light, light, sweet Godlit light