AN ALMOST

by Michael H. Brownstein

and then at the lowest
mind swing and mood
deep in the bottomlands,
I changed lanes into a space
another car occupied.
How do you move from one
space to another
filling a space already occupied?
The driver honked once,
a half hearted honk,
and left me alone.
His car was there and so was mine
and yet what should have been
a body bursting full bodied collusion
fizzed to nothing. Immediately,
I thought of God, and angels,
and God again--the footprints in the sand--
and saw everything as a sign:
I'm not finished here yet,
there's something I'm to do.
and I told this to my son
later and he said, fate
does not work that way.
You draw your own lines,
you fray your own path,
and I told him, yes,
it had to be a sign,
and he said, OK, think
that way, but you are the one
in charge and it is you
who must make his way.
And yet I know an angel
was in that car--why no anger,
why the short honk of a horn,
why did the car vanish
in the dark behind me,
and why on the way home
did one police car after another
follow me home as if someone
needed to make sure
I would arrive there safely.