Near Miss

It's a hands-in-your-coat-pockets-stroll kind of a day.
Yellow leaves spinning down.
The dog was asleep and you didn't want to wake him.
Your daughter wasn't needing a ride to meet friends at the movie.
Your wife's with her mother.
Your father's dead so no phone call there.
The neighbors' newspaper is still at the end of their drive.
The cars are all quiet in their garages.
Maybe you don't exist, never have.
Maybe you are someone's notion of taking a walk
but a notion that will pass momentarily
and you'll be gone.
Then a downy woodpecker fastens to a dogwood trunk
and raps, knocks the world back together.

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Copyright © 2011 Michael Chitwood All rights reserved
from Crazyhorse
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission